A Bend In The River

Salim thinks if he had read Raymond’s articles sooner he might have felt Yvette was a failure for having attached herself to Raymond. When Salim believed that Raymond was “[t]he Big Man’s white man” (184) he was “thrilled to feel so close to the highest power in the land” (184). Raymond’s success depends entirely on the whim of the president, and now Salim sees that this is true for all of them. Salim notes that the president has begun installing statues of “the African Madonna with child” (185) and that, while visitors might scoff at these installations, Salim thinks, “to understand the President’s purpose was to be affected by it” (185). 

Indar hasn’t written with news about Raymond’s history book. There is no reassurance that Raymond will have any further success. Yvette describes for Salim her experiences with the president in the capital. She explains that she committed a cultural faux pas by speaking after the President had laid his chief’s stick on the ground to command silence. Yvette thinks, however, that this isn’t the reason for Raymond’s dismissal. Rather, it’s that “[h]e broke with Raymond when he decided that he didn’t need him, that in the new direction he was taking the white man was an embarrassment to him in the capital” (187).