Further pondering what drives him, S speculates that Taraqachi, the name Waqar and Anca have bestowed upon him, must mean “the one who tries” (351).

Finally, the boat reaches the mayors mansion, which is glorious and extravagant, just as one would expect for a greedy industrialist who is oppressing other people. Straka makes his views on the mayor evident by calling the mansion “the spot where earth is transformed to numbers in a ledger” (351), clearly a negative description. The canoe pulls up along the side of the river, and S gets out to go do his mission.

There is a footnote about how the phrase “sudden city” references both another one of Straka’s works-“Coriolis,” and the “Sunken City” of “Winged Shoes.” The character from the Sunken City is named Emydio Alves. That name is not the name of anyone famous in the real world, but the character Emydio Alves in “Winged Shoes” acted similarly to how the young man Vaclav Straka did, jumping off a bridge. For more information regarding that connection, click the link above.

There are very few notes in the margins on page 351, the only one being a brief observation from Jen that Straka’s description of the bend in the river sounds like a place she’s been before. Eric does not respond, showing that the note does not carry much significance for either of them.