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Summary: Chapter 16

Salim landed in the capital of the unnamed African country, which he found disappointing and “flimsy” after having spent time in London. The drive from the airport into the city took a long time, and he saw large billboards with portraits of the President and maxims from his speeches along the road. The portraits struck Salim as a sign of the President’s desperation to compete politically with European leaders. Yet the evident contradictions of the capital clearly undermined this desire to compete. Salim noted that much of the city was decaying and piled with rubbish, even as sleek new public works were under construction.

The next morning, Salim returned to the airport for the flight back to the town at the bend in the river. Despite having a ticket, he had to bribe an attendant to pass through the gate. Then, walking out to the plane, a security officer detained Salim and left him waiting in an examination room. Eventually a senior official, annoyed at the plane’s delay, released Salim and sent him to board the plane.

The flight had a planned stop halfway to its destination. But upon landing, the passengers had to deboard, and the plane took off again without them. The plane had been commandeered for some presidential service, forcing the passengers to wait for its return. Stranded, Salim thought about the complexity of the river as seen from above, composed as it was from numerous intersecting channels. He also thought about the villages located along the river, where people existed “more or less as they had lived for centuries.”

Toward evening, the plane returned and took the passengers the rest of the way to their destination. Metty responded coldly to Salim’s return, expressing his surprise that he had returned at all. The next morning, Metty explained that the authorities had taken control of the shop and given it to an African named Théotime. The President had called for the nationalization of all foreign-owned businesses, and Théotime was appointed the “state trustee” of Salim’s shop.

When he went to his shop, Salim found everything in place except for his desk, which had been moved into the back storeroom. The photographs of Yvette he’d kept in the top drawer were missing, replaced by tattered comic books. Salim waited for Théotime to arrive. When he came, Salim found him modest and courteous. Théotime insisted that Salim shouldn’t take the situation personally and that he would remain the manager with a fair salary.

Salim left to look for Mahesh and found that it was business as usual at Bigburger. Mahesh explained that he had “radicalized” the restaurant after Noimon left town. Ildephonse and others had formed an all-African company during the boom and had bought the branch from Mahesh, leaving Mahesh to manage operations. The news shocked Salim, who felt he’d long ago missed his opportunity to get out.

Salim realized that he needed to get out of the country. He had some money saved up, but he needed more, and he also needed a plan for transferring his money to a foreign bank account. Salim began dealing illegally in gold and ivory. He also devised a risky scheme to transfer his money internationally, which involved providing local currency to visitors on the promise that they would deposit money into a foreign account when they returned to Europe or the United States. The idea failed, and Salim lost two-thirds of his capital.

Salim learned that Raymond and Yvette had left, but no one could give him more information about their whereabouts. The Domain no longer seemed modern and instead looked like an African housing settlement. Salim reflected on the many changes that had come to this section of land. He felt glad that Raymond had gotten away, especially given his “curious reputation” as the white man who exited the car first to draw negative attention away from the President during his trips to the bush. Such a role might have made him a target of the Liberation Army, particularly now that the town was preparing for a visit from the President.

Analysis: Chapter 16

Salim’s transition from Europe back to Africa highlighted a number of contradictions that subverted the President’s vision of a new Africa that could compete with Europe. On his return journey, Salim spent the night in the capital, which was his first time in the city. Despite being far more impressive than the town at the bend in the river, Salim’s recent experience in London made it hard for him to regard the capital with genuine awe. For one thing, the ubiquitous photographs of the President struck him as a form of self-promotion that, from a European point of view, might look like mere propaganda. For another thing, despite the President’s desire to develop the capital into a modern city, the fact that ambitious construction projects sat side by side with derelict infrastructure underscored the shortcomings of his vision. Furthermore, the difficulties Salim experienced while traveling the relatively short distance between the capital and the town gave extensive evidence of bureaucracy, corruption, and inconvenience, which contrasted starkly with his comparatively smooth travel experience to London. Although Salim certainly had his share of disappointment in London, his return journey foreshadowed far worse trouble in this unevenly developing African country.

Upon returning to Africa and learning that the government had nationalized his shop, Salim realized that he had failed to “get out” of his business venture at the appropriate time, as Nazruddin had told him to do long ago. To Salim’s astonishment, Mahesh had sold his successful Bigburger branch to African investors immediately after Noimon left town, which signaled the end of the economic boom. Mahesh also reported that other foreign business owners in town had done the same thing. At the time when these business dealings had transpired, Salim had been completely wrapped up in his relationship with Yvette and otherwise consumed with anxiety about his own future. Distracted by incidentals, Salim had completely lost sight of the economic foundations of his livelihood. For this reason, he had missed his one major opportunity to sell at a profit and improve his material conditions. Salim’s failure to get out at the right time reflected an inability to abide by the advice Nazruddin gave Salim when he sold him the shop. It also highlighted Salim’s tendency to live in his head more than the real world.

Salim’s reflection on the many changes that took place on the land just outside of town recalls the theme of cyclical history and also moves beyond that theme, offering a vision of nonlinear progress through time. As he left the Domain for the last time, Salim looked out on the now-dilapidated buildings and contemplated the various forms this land had taken over the course of the past century and more, from forest to European settlement to symbol of a new Africa to crumbling wreckage. This series of transformations traces an overarching cycle that passes between states of wildness and settlement, ruin and revitalization. Such a repeating cycle at once echoes and affirms the cycle of boom and bust that has characterized Salim’s experience since his arrival in the town. Yet it also charts a progression that moves nonlinearly through periods of foreign rule and toward African self-realization. Though Salim’s list ends pessimistically, drawing attention to how the Domain has become an “African settlement,” the overall trajectory moves optimistically toward African sovereignty.

At the end of Chapter 16, Salim reveals that the mysterious white man Zabeth had described back in Chapter 14 was, in fact, Raymond. On her most recent trip to the town, Zabeth told Salim that she’d seen the President in the bush. Before he exited the car, a white man had hopped out to draw away everything that was bad for the President, presumably including both political enemies and malevolent spirits. Although Salim’s narration has not returned to the subject of the mysterious white man since the scene with Zabeth, at some point he clearly heard speculation that identified Raymond as that mysterious white man. Salim only mentions it at this point to express relief now that Raymond had left the country. Yet the revelation changes the reader’s understanding of Raymond as a character. The last time Salim spoke of Raymond, again back in Chapter 14, he thought the historian had finally realized that he would never return to the President’s favor and had abandoned his loyalty. As it turns out, however, Raymond had remained loyal and grown desperate and had given up on his intellectual work to put his body on the line.

 

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