The Subtweet

by Vivek Shraya

  “Yup, coming,” she said, stuffing her phone in one of her jumpsuit’s ample pockets. As they climbed up the slim stairs to stage level, she tripped, but Kasi caught her.

  “You okay? You seem distracted.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Behind the curtain, once they found a spot to stand safely amidst the cords slithering around their feet, Kasi put out her hands, palms up. Rukmini placed her hands on top of Kasi’s, trying to tune out the house music, the bustling surly men with headsets and Neela’s text. Next, they raised their arms and robotically twisted handfuls of air, imitating the white people who tried to bhangra during their Berlin set. Since then, this move had become a pre-show ritual, their ensuing laughter always bursting any nervousness.

  This time Rukmini didn’t laugh. As soon as they stopped, the backstage frenzy rushed in and Rukmini’s thoughts cranked to eleven. What was Neela’s idea? Was Neela going to record a visual album like Beyoncé? No, it would have to be something that hadn’t been done before. Or maybe her idea wasn’t music related. Was she going to write her memoir? Launch a photography exhibit? Compete in a triathlon? Why couldn’t Rukmini generate ideas like this?

  Rukmini felt her thigh vibrate. Sumi, not Neela, had texted her.

  Can you hook D1 up with tickets to the Detroit show in May?

  Why would Sumi ask for free tickets to a tour of an artist she had trashed? It’s not like Sumi wanted to see Rukmini or see her perform. Ever since the tour began, Sumi’s messages had fixated on Hayley.

  So what’s she like in person?

  Can she even sing live?

  Are you like bffs now?

  The sarcastic tone of these texts reminded Rukmini of Sumi’s lack of support when she’d been invited on the tour, so she rarely responded. But they also stirred embarrassment about how little contact she had with Hayley.

  “Well, that was weird,” Kasi had whispered as they were leaving Hayley’s dressing room after being introduced to her during the first week of tour. The spacious room was lit with only candles and Nag Champa incense burned in each corner.

  “She’s just a really busy woman.” Rukmini defended Hayley to repress the part of herself that agreed with Kasi.

  “But she didn’t even turn around from her mirror to face us. It was kind of like we were her staff.”

  “Technically we are, aren’t we?”

  On some nights, as they sat at the main merch stand in the foyer after their set, catching only muffled songs and screams emanating from inside the venue where Hayley was performing, Rukmini replayed their brief brush with celebrity. She had always suspected that the tour offer was a diversity invitation, but she wanted to be wrong. She’d hoped Hayley was different, hoped that they would have pre-show dinners together and passionate discussions about production, inspiration and maybe even collaboration. What was it about whiteness that seemed to elicit an infinite spring of faith and second chances? But no such dinner ever took place.

  Now side stage, Rukmini heard the background music fade out. The stage lights turned green. Her cue. The crowd screamed.

  Sumi’s text had made her think about having to return to her job at Toronto Tops after the tour, to the unpleasantness of writing corny listicles in her cubicle across from the ever-jammed and beeping photocopier. Sumi had probably been tasked a trivial assignment herself — writing about the show. Why wouldn’t she just get Toronto Tops to comp the tickets? Rukmini shoved her phone back into her pocket.

  “Get into the game, Rukmini. Remember how lucky you are,” she whispered to herself, jumping up and down a couple of times. Kasi joined her. They walked onstage together, holding hands.

  Kasi marched towards her keyboard and began playing the first notes of “Every Song.”

  Recalling that opening with this song had been Neela’s idea, Rukmini’s voice cracked.

  “Aren’t I just blowing my load by opening with my best known cover?” Rukmini had asked when they had discussed her set list in Neela’s kitchen.

  “That’s how you win them over,” Neela had advised. She was right.

  The crowd didn’t notice that her voice broke because she flipped her hair as it happened (another Neela idea: “just distract the audience if you make a mistake”). As she moved through the rest of the set, she obsessed over how many of her performance choices were Neela’s ideas. Mid-set when she walked offstage briefly “to create suspense” — another Neela idea — she considered not going back on. Upon reaching their final song, “Wanting,” she couldn’t help but dedicate the closer to Neela.

  “Y’all know Neela Devaki?” The crowd grew quiet and heads shook. “She wrote ‘Every Song.’”

  “I love ‘Every Song,’” someone from the audience yelled.

  “I love ‘Every Song’ too. And I love Neela Devaki, the woman who wrote it. She’s the original. Go check her out. This one’s for her.” Neela, the luminous idea light bulb, and Rukmini, a shadow — or worse, a light-sucking black hole.

  Rukmini croaked the opening lines of “Wanting.”

  Nobody can see my isolation

  Nobody can see how much I want to be friends

  Nobody can see my wanting

  Don’t want to be wanting

  Her thoughts shifted to Malika, as they usually did during this song. During the first few shows, she had considered dedicating this song to Malika but worried saying her name would only draw more attention to her absence. She always half-expected to see Malika in the audience, her face even angrier than it had been the last time she’d seen her. Once she mistook a fan’s sign for a protest sign, seeing only the Xs and not the Os around “RUK-MINI,” because the woman holding it reminded her of Malika.

  Sooner or later, Malika would show up. Rukmini would stretch out her hand into the crowd and say, “This woman was my best friend in university. She taught me how to sing. I wouldn’t be up here if it wasn’t for her.” A spotlight would shine on Malika as she floated onto the stage. They would embrace, and through tears they would sing their song together with the audience.

  Because wanting is dangerous

  Wanting is dangerous

  I’ll suppress the beast, I’ll be my best for now

  Or maybe Malika would snatch her mic. “Guess what, everybody? This woman,” Malika would say, pointing at Rukmini, “this bitch doesn’t give a fuck about friendship or music or dreams. She doesn’t deserve this stage. All she ever cared about was herself.”

  Rukmini’s mic almost fell out of her hands as she envisioned this scenario. Thankfully, their set was over. Rukmini hurried backstage.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Kasi asked, fanning herself with one hand.

  “Your set was really good tonight,” the sound technician interrupted.

  But it wasn’t their set. Or Rukmini’s set. Wasn’t it actually Neela Devaki’s set? Or Malika’s set?

  “Encore!” the audience yelled, as every audience in every city on the tour had so far. Encores were uncommon for opening acts, but Rukmini sighed. She grabbed her bottle of water tucked between gear cases, gulped it down and then asked Kasi, “Do you think any of them are actually paying attention to the lyrics of these songs?”

  Kasi finished retying her crisp leather boots, pushed herself up and responded, “Honestly, I’ve been wondering the same thing.” Standing face to face with Rukmini, she placed her hands on her shoulders like a coach mid–pep talk. “Let’s talk about this in our debrief after the show, okay?”

  Then Kasi ran onstage and hit Play on her laptop, starting the instrumental she had replicated from the Subaltern Speaks’ track “Audre.” Rukmini followed and swayed, trying to replace her doubts with the memory of how thrilling it had felt at the beginning of the tour to sing and dance on giant stages. But after a few weeks, when she wasn’t contending with guilt about Malika (and now Neela), she thought about how her experience as an opening
act confirmed her discomfort as an audience member with their treatment. They were just that: an act. She wasn’t an artist to Hayley, and perhaps to a segment of Hayley’s audience. She was an impersonator or, worse, a stand-in, a nameless outline of a brown figure. Was all the audience’s applause for her and Kasi, or for themselves for being so open-minded, so inclusive? Performing songs she had worked on almost a decade ago, songs composed of postcolonial theory, felt more and more dissonant.

  As she spoke Audre Lorde’s words over Malika’s watery pads — “Your silence will not protect you” — waves of enraptured white faces opened their mouths to release a collective shout. She knew this wasn’t quite what Lorde had meant.

  * * *

  “So, who is ‘Every Song’ about?” Rukmini had leaned forward and whispered during their first coffee date.

  “No one,” Neela answered.

  Rukmini sat back, disappointed. “Come on. There has to be a story there.”

  The story was that Neela’s interest in her lovers inevitably declined into boredom. After the initial curiosity and desire to ravage one another physically wore down, coupledom was mostly an exercise in compromise. The beauty of singledom was never having to do the tedious and predictable dance of:

  “What are you doing this weekend?”

  “Depends on what you’re doing this weekend.”

  “What do you feel like eating tonight?”

  “I don’t know. What do you feel like eating?”

  At the core of “Every Song” was her longing for individual freedom. When she sang the lyrics every song’s about falling in love or breaking up / nobody’s singing to me, she knew listeners assumed either that she wanted to hear a song about loneliness or domestic ennui. But really, what she wanted was to hear a song that wasn’t about romance or relationships at all.

  The idea that had come to her in orgasm was to write that song — or rather to write an entire album of songs that focused on the thrill of solitude, the luxuriousness of her own company. She would call it Selfhood. She hoped this album would not only fulfill her desires as a listener but also bring her back to her own music and to herself.

  When Neela explained her idea to Rukmini, she texted back immediately.

  SO COOL. SO YOU.

  Thank you, Rukmini heart emoji

  She had wanted to hear Rukmini’s voice when she explained the concept, but Rukmini seemed eager to know what it was right away.

  And you’re right, songs are always about love zzz. Or dancing. Or dancing in love LOL.

  Not Subaltern Speaks’ songs…

  Haha. Don’t remind me.

  * * *

  It took Neela almost three months to write and record Selfhood.

  There was often a three to four year gap between her releases — an old-fashioned pace by today’s standards. New albums and single releases were in her feed every day; she was repulsed by the vulgar tendency, particularly among younger artists, to vomit new — and often unedited — work rapidly. At first she had assumed this trend was narcissistic self-indulgence, or an addiction to the act of making announcements (as opposed to making art), the glee from bragging: “Look at what I am doing now! I’m amazing!” But after watching the musicians clamour for the mic at the North by Northeast panel she had moderated, she wondered if overproduction was a response to their fear that their value on the diversity stock market could plummet at any moment.

  In the early stages of her own writing process, a song could swing in many directions. Making a decision about which path to follow required her to demo each song forty or more times, in different keys and at various speeds. Only when she had explored all the options could she be certain which melodies were worthy of saving and which to scrap. But with this project, she wanted to be less precious and more spontaneous — a little more like Rukmini.

  Every day Neela would lie on the floor, as she had when inspiration first struck, but in different parts of her apartment. She waited for her thoughts and breathing to slow down. When her mind was clear, she would open her mouth and listen to the sounds that emerged. Inspired by her own name, she played with the possibilities of the vowels E and A, recording every permutation with her iPhone placed next to her head.

  These droning sounds eventually pushed her off the floor and into her living room. Instead of sitting at her small upright wooden piano as she typically did when she wrote songs, she reached for her dad’s old wooden harmonium, tucked on the bottom row of her bookshelf. He had given it to her when her parents had decided they were officially over the frigid climate and locals and moved back to Pakistan. Placing the instrument on her lap, she blew the dust off it and stroked the cracks that had developed on its sides from once-regular usage.

  When she was a teenager, she had helped her dad carry this harmonium to and from the car every Sunday for puja at the local temple. This was the only time she had felt permitted to touch the instrument, which otherwise sat in their basement covered in a custom maroon-and-gold velvet case. Occasionally, before her parents got home from work, she would remove the case, put her right hand on the white keys and pump the bellows with her left hand, letting the sound saturate the room. Often she would just hold one chord, closing her eyes and swaying her head the way her dad did when he played. In this state of hypnosis, she felt less like she was pretending to be her dad and more like she was gaining insight into his mind and heart. Perhaps it was no surprise then that when she had played the harmonium, she pictured her mother.

  Neela released the bellows from the metal fastener on the side, played her favourite chord, D minor, and continued to explore prolonged vowels. Twenty years later, she didn’t picture her mother or her father as she played, but rather her teenage self full of secret musical fascination.

  After a week, this process began to feel too hermetic and not reflective of her day-to-day independence outside her house. Feeling the urge to be outdoors, she walked down into the mushy valley of Riverdale Park, humming all the way to St. James Cemetery. In the company of bones and tombs anchored in stubborn ice, the melodies she sang grew more fragmented. She started springing between notes feverishly, as though it weren’t safe to linger on any note for too long, simulating the dexterity essential for a single woman.

  When she later listened to the dozens of voice memos she had recorded in the cemetery, the compositions were so shapeless that they sounded less like songs and more like what she would hear if she planted a microphone inside her chest.

  She wanted the finished project to convey that same sense of intimacy, so she recorded the album entirely by herself in her home office, like Rukmini would, instead of turning to her regular collaborators for support as she had in the past.

  “Wow, you nailed that take,” her first producer had said from inside the control room when she was recording the lead vocals for “Every Song.”

  “Let’s do it again.”

  “I don’t think you need to, Miss One-Take Wonder.” She shuddered, hearing the phrase “one-take wonder” come through her headphones. What was so remarkable about settling for your first attempt, about not at least trying to improve?

  “No, I know I can do it better.”

  “Why don’t you come in here and take a listen. I really think we’ve got it.”

  “Tim. I want to do it again,” she asserted, leaning closer to the mic in case he hadn’t heard her.

  “Well, it’s your money,” he snapped, kicking one of the many empty Styrofoam cups strewn across the hardwood floor. Neela was certain that he didn’t throw the empty coffee cups into the garbage just so that he had somewhere to channel his aggression when anyone disagreed with him. Sometimes she would purposefully challenge him, because nothing was more entertaining than watching a grown man throwing a temper tantrum as an intimidation tactic.

  Eighteen takes later, her voice had taken a new shape, the low end almost a growl.

  �
��I still think the first take was the best take. Your voice sounded prettier and sadder. Which is the right tone for a love song,” Tim argued as they listened back to the track on the monitors.

  The album version of the song featured the vocals she recorded on her twentieth take.

  She thought about Tim now, about how glad she was that she wasn’t working with him again and how vindicated he would feel if he knew that she was forcing herself to record her vocals only once. The difference this time wasn’t that the first take was perfect, nor that she had grown complacent. The first take had the raw sound she sought for this project. Not overthought or over-rehearsed. Another Rukmini influence.

  As Rukmini’s tour wore on, Neela heard from her less frequently. They couldn’t compete with ever-changing time zones, jet lag, soundcheck and late shows. But they managed to chat on the phone every Sunday for at least ten minutes. It was never enough time, and after they hung up she often felt like an inmate Rukmini called in prison every week, disconnected from her real life. Neela was happy though to hear even briefly about Rukmini’s adventures and then to return to her own album.

  “When do I — to hear it?” Rukmini pressed this Sunday, as she had ever since Neela had told her about the album. “— sing — something!”

  “Now? On the phone?” Neela cleared her throat instinctively but had no intention of singing.

  “Or just send — rough mixes — !” Rukmini’s voice was interrupted by what sounded like wind.

  “I want you to hear it when it’s fully mastered,” Neela said, jotting down a reminder in her leather day planner to search for a local female mastering engineer.

  “Don’t — me — — dying to — !”

  “Rukmini, you’re cutting out. Don’t worry though, you will be the first to hear it.”

  After she set a release date, she spent hours listening and relistening to the mixes at different volumes on her monitors, earbuds and internal computer speakers. She even rented a Camry for the necessary car stereo test to see how the album translated in another environment. As she left Toronto for Mississauga, her own vocals blaring through the speakers, she honed in on any flaws to berate herself. Why hadn’t she sung the opening note an octave lower? Was the bass too quiet? She also tried to imagine she was a listener hearing these songs for the first time. What would she think? Would she make it past the first half? Would she listen to it more than once?