Solo

by Rana Dasgupta

  Old Petar stood in the middle of the enclosure and took his knife out of his belt. He raised it above his head, and everyone cheered. He spoke:

  ‘I’m not slaughtering the pig today. My son here thinks he can do it better. So see him try.’

  There was general surprise. Old Petar walked out of the pen and handed the knife to his son. Then he turned his back on the crowd and set off down the street towards home.

  Petar jumped down from the fence into the enclosure. Everyone was watching. The mayor and all his friends. The young men who had mocked Petar when they were at school. All the prettiest girls in the town were there. They were all sitting on the fence watching how Petar would fare with the pig.

  The mayor was a little nervous.

  ‘Are you sure about this, young Petar? I have a lot of guests to feed today and I don’t want anything to go wrong. That pig’s been waiting a long time for this day. Ideally he would want someone with a bit more experience.’

  Petar had brought three long pieces of rope. He tied them to sturdy posts on different sides of the pen, and laid the three loose ends together in the middle. Everyone watched curiously.

  The mayor said,

  ‘Do you want some men to hold him down? You’re just a snip of a thing yourself.’

  Petar approached the pig, which eyed him lazily. He took its ear and tried to pull it to its feet. The pig did not move. He seized both ears and leant backwards, pulling as hard as he could. The pig was oblivious, and the girls began to snigger. Petar took a sharp stick and began to poke the pig in the neck. It still did not react: its skin was as tough as bark. Finally, he threw himself into the ripe darkness of the sty, wriggled along the length of the pig’s warm flank, and prodded it vigorously in the backside. The pig snorted and flicked its tail in his face, and, as Petar dug in harder, it whined irritably and struggled to its feet. Finally, it stumbled out of the sty and into the open. Petar crawled after it, covered in filth.

  The pig stood under the hot sun, drowsy and bewildered. It was the mayor’s prize boar, and the largest Petar had ever seen. Its head was larger than his torso. Its body was a long pink mountain of muscle and fat, and its legs were as thick as pillars. Its eyes were moist and human, with a thatch of stiff gold lashes.

  Petar coaxed the pig into the middle of the enclosure. He stroked it to keep it calm, and pushed it gently ahead of him. The pig was in no mood for an argument. When Petar had it where he wanted it, he began to stroke its snout and to speak soothingly in its ear, until the pig folded its forelegs and lay down on the ground. Petar pulled the ropes taut and tied them firmly around the pig’s ankles.

  Everyone was still. The mayor said quietly,

  ‘You’re sure you’re all right, boy?’

  Petar nodded.

  He took the knife his father had given him and held it ready. He lay down gently on the broad surface of its back, speaking softly in the pig’s ear, his arms around either side of its head. Suddenly, and so violently that even his expectant audience was taken by surprise, Petar thrust the knife into the pig’s throat.

  The pig let out a scream that split their heads like the screech of an electric drill; it staggered to its feet, eyes flung wide. Petar gripped its head and tried to push his knife in farther, but the pig started to run. The two posts at the far end of the enclosure were pulled clean out of the ground, and spectators fell into the mud as the fence collapsed. The pig lowered its head and broke through the barrier at the other end; the crowd scattered in all directions as Petar gripped the pig’s back with his knees as best he could and sawed at its windpipe, opening a hole that gushed blood in the wind. The third rope tautened, and once again the post was ripped out – and now there were three fence posts bouncing on the end of ropes as the pig ran screaming down the hill, its eyes rolling in its sockets and Petar hanging on for dear life.

  Behind them ran the party guests, calling and screaming and grabbing at the flying ropes, but none of them could stall the careering pig.

  Ahead of them, Petar could see the main road coming close, where cars flashed by on their way to Rousse or the Black Sea, and still the pig charged pell-mell, hoofs a-clatter on tarmac and piston legs accelerating with the incline; and just as the road broadened out into a junction, still bucking and lurching, Petar managed to cut through the pig’s windpipe. Its shriek dried up in its throat and he felt it flag. Its giant lungs were heaving, sucking impotently at the air.

  The pig came to a halt. The running crowd caught up and watched as the big eyes turned white, saliva coursed from pig lips, the legs buckled – and the huge animal rolled over, its nostrils still whistling. Petar did not loose his grip but clung on as if in his own rigor mortis. People formed a circle around the dying pig. It was covered in sweat, and blood was still pumping out on to the street. Its eyes opened wide and its back legs kicked, once, twice, three times. It took a long time to die. No one spoke.

  The mayor marched after them. He was red with rage.

  ‘A fine mess, young Petar. What a way to kill a pig. The whole meal will taste of this. And now we have to carry a quarter-ton beast back up the hill. A big fucking mess. I should have just put a bullet in its head.’

  Petar got off the pig. He was covered in blood from head to toe. Someone brought a tractor, and everyone heaved the dead pig on to the trailer. They walked behind it up the hill.

  Petar went home. His father was sawing wood.

  ‘Did you kill it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His father smirked.

  ‘Looks like it put up quite a fight. You’d better get washed.’

  Petar took a shower. His hair was matted with blood and pig shit. He felt depressed. He watched the brown water go down the plughole and vomited suddenly, holding in the noise.

  In the evening, he put on a new shirt and set out with his father for the party.

  The men came gathered round as they arrived.

  ‘Never seen a pig killed like that, Old Petar! Your son did it bareback! Did well to keep his focus, he did.’

  Old Petar gave a half-smile. The men pressed rakia into their hands.

  ‘You’ll need a drink after that, boy.’

  The pig had been roasting for hours on the spit, and the aroma displaced everything else. Women were still peeling vegetables and chopping onions and herbs. It was a beautiful autumn night, and the men gathered in lazy groups, smoking and drinking.

  The mayor came over with more rakia.

  ‘Your son told you how he ruined my pig? Big mess. Big fucking mess. I saved that boar a long time.’

  Old Petar did not look up. There was music coming from inside the hall, too loud for him to think straight, and he said,

  ‘My brother has rented a Japanese stereo from the Gypsies, with speakers as tall as me. He thinks it will make the young people like him. Meanwhile we can’t even hear what we’re saying.’

  The stars grew bright, and the mayor announced dinner. They went inside to take their places. A life-sized photograph of the mayor and his wife on their wedding day had been pasted on one wall. The stereo was blaring pop music, and the worldlier girls were singing along. The tables were piled with food, and people began to eat hungrily. The mayor sat at the head table with his family, glaring all the time at his brother. He shouted through the music,

  ‘Can you taste it, Petko? Can you taste the upset your son made? The meat is ruined.’

  Old Petar laid an arm across his son’s shoulders and said,

  ‘It tastes fine to me. At least he had the courage to try. You should have taken the pig on yourself. Then we could have laughed good and proper.’

  The girls got up to dance in the middle of the tables. It was raucous music that Petar did not know. Several babies started crying at the same time. The mayor continued to complain about the pig.

  Somebody came and hovered over Petar.

  Petar had always loved Irina, but only from afar. In his private thoughts, she was an insouciant flock of laughter, a tumbling-syca
more girl, a bliss of damask roses. He had watched her grow up without her ever sending a glance in his direction. He sometimes went to the bakery where she worked, and she dealt with him swiftly and silently. He had seen her at weddings, singing songs until the old men cried, and she was perfect and fearless, and destined for extraordinary things.

  ‘Why don’t you ever dance?’ said she.

  ‘I’m not very good. I prefer to watch.’

  ‘Why don’t you try?’

  She held out her hand and he took it. Standing next to her, he was half a head shorter. She led him into the middle of the room and succumbed to an energetic dance which was a perfect translation of the wild sounds into flesh. He tried to follow, awkwardly. She smiled at him.

  ‘That was the worst slaughter I ever saw!’

  She laughed loudly.

  ‘It was a big pig,’ he said, not sure what she meant.

  The dance was not working. She said,

  ‘Let’s go.’

  They went outside and walked idly.

  ‘Don’t you like music?’

  ‘I don’t know much about it.’

  ‘You’re missing out. Music is the reason to be young!’

  And then she said,

  ‘The Gypsies bring in music from England and Germany. I can teach you everything. In England there’s a style called punk, and there’s another kind called heavy metal. Motörhead, Iron Maiden – have you heard of them? I have headphones at home: you put those pads on your ears and hear the guitars groaning behind your eyelids, your brain melts and it’s crazy and fantastic.’

  Petar looked at the ground while they walked, thinking, She is amazing.

  ‘Let’s face it,’ she said, ‘the world is shit, and full of lies. You need music. Then you understand that none of this matters – this punishment, this stupid Bulgaria.’

  The factory had stayed closed that day, and the air was clear. She said,

  ‘I’m going to join a band some day. Get out of this town.’

  ‘You’ll be a great singer,’ said Petar assuredly.

  ‘What do you know? What have you heard, except for the stuff they play on Radio Sofia? The songs I write would scare you.’

  Petar smiled. He said,

  ‘I know you well enough. I know we’ll switch on the television one day and see you on the big shows from Moscow. And we’ll still be here, living like we do. We’ll say, Once we knew her: she grew up here!’

  He was wistful. He said,

  ‘It will make me happy. To know you did what you dreamed of.’

  She thought about it.

  ‘They’ll never play my music on those stuffy shows.’

  They had arrived at her house.

  ‘Come in. Everyone’s at the party. We can drink on our own.’

  They went into the house. He sat down at the kitchen table. She took some vodka down from a shelf and poured it into two glasses.

  Nine months later, Irina gave birth to a baby boy. She and her new husband, Petar, named him Boris.

  They had moved into a small apartment in an old tower block, but Petar was making plans for them to move to Sofia so that Irina could pursue her musical dreams.

  The new baby was tiny and frail. Boris breathed with difficulty and seemed to be in continual discomfort. The doctor warned he might not live. He advised that the baby sleep with an oxygen mask, since his lungs were not yet fully developed.

  The anxious parents laid their baby between them each night and stayed awake for hours, watching every breath going into his lungs and every exhalation misting the mask. Finally, exhausted by the anxiety, they fell asleep. Long after they had drifted away, the cylinder of oxygen stood like a sentinel by the bed, its rubber tube looping over one parent and blowing gently into baby Boris’s mouth and nose.

  And so it was, on a cold night in November, when a spiteful gust of wind caused the flame to go out on the young family’s gas heater, when gas started to fill the bedroom (whose windows had been closed against draughts), when all the oxygen was expelled from the air and a deathly heaviness began to descend – that only little Boris, out of all his family, survived.

  2

  AFTER THE DEATHS OF PETAR AND IRINA, Old Petar collapsed into incapacity and fell away from the life of the town. Orphan Boris was taken in by Irina’s mother, Stoyana, who was the accountant in the local post office.

  Stoyana considered her grandson’s preservation to be nothing short of a miracle. She loved him to distraction, and his infant antics were her cardinal joy.

  When Boris was two years old she heard him singing a tune to himself. She recognised the melody, but could not recall where she had heard it. Boris continued to sing the same tune every evening, until Stoyana remembered it was a lullaby that Irina had written for her unborn son, and sung to him in the womb.

  The town had seen better times. Money did not do what it once had done, and people began to suffer. The old housing blocks were damp and crumbling, and light bulbs had become so scarce they were pilfered from every corridor and elevator. Half the factory buses had stopped working. Broken windows and balconies were mended with corrugated iron, and there was nothing in the shops. Outside the factory, the mountain of slurry had collapsed into the river, and people blamed it for their cancers. Every morning there was a repulsive scattering of syringes around the bus shelter.

  The Gypsies made money, which only increased the plight. No one had ever liked Gypsies, but things were easy while they were poor, and their children safely stowed in a school for the mad. Now they were lording it around with second-hand ZIL sedans, and illegal satellite dishes, and sparkling frontages on their shabby houses – and it seemed as though their years of exile were bringing rewards. The socialist economy, which gave jobs to all the Bulgarians, had seized up, and now the only money was in contraband.

  Another person who seemed to do well was the mayor. He was an exuberant character who was appreciated as much for his dancing and his erotic novels as for his political opinions, and he had been a well-loved fixture for many years. But behind his jovial façade he evidently had operations that no one surmised, for even in this dark era he had managed to buy himself a new villa by the Black Sea. So when it was time for his daughter to marry, everyone looked forward to an extravagant feast at which to drink away their privations.

  Boris was seven years old. On the morning of the wedding, Stoyana took him to the mayor’s house to wait with the bridal party, where he sat uncomfortably in his new suit and observed the goings-on. Two girls, hardly older than he, ran around with some unaccountable glee. The mayor, dressed up like a battleship coming into port, banged repeatedly on his daughter’s door, Fifteen minutes! Ten minutes!, while his wife packed bottles of rakia into a box for the party later, weeping all the time and mopping her nose.

  The bride’s door opened a crack, the bridesmaid’s head peeking through it, mouthing some secret need to another woman outside; behind them was a glimpse of the bride in the mirror, not fully dressed.

  A rooster scrabbled in a crate in the corner. Boris knelt by it, his only ally. Its wings were tied and it seemed enraged. Boris put his head close. Its eyes were stupid, with only a dot of presence. He took the bird’s beak in his teeth and held it stiffly closed, eye to twitching orange eye, until its stifled struggling pulled it free.

  An old lady said,

  ‘I will bring roses for all the guests!’

  She grinned at the ceiling.

  ‘The flowers are arranged, Mother. We’ve already talked about this.’

  Boris wondered what you might carry so many roses in. A wheelbarrow? Perhaps you would need a whole truck? But if there were that many, the ones at the bottom—

  ‘They are coming! They are here!’

  The girls ran to open the window and the music came in from down the road. Boris heard it and ran too. What sounds! Somebody played clarinet like a painted spinning-top tripping and skipping on the uneven ground of the beating tapan, with kaval and violin leaping overhead. T
hey have brought Petko Spassov to play at the wedding! He began to dance like a seven-year-old at the window as the musicians turned the corner and the sounds became louder: he could see the party approaching down below, the bridegroom looking even glummer than usual because of his shaved head, and Petko Spassov himself with black flowing hair holding high his clarinet as he walked.

  The mayor banged again at the door.

  ‘They’re already here! What’s going on?’

  Slowly, the door opened. Out came his daughter, stooped, her face behind a veil. The room went limp.

  ‘Oh, my darling girl!’

  The mayor looked at her tearfully, his urgency forgotten. He kissed her on the head through the gauze.

  ‘What a day, what a day!’ he said.

  His wife rushed out of the kitchen, shaking dry her hands, and her tears flowed again at the sight of her daughter in white. The two girls smashed a glass thing with their running round the house.

  The bridegroom’s party arrived at the foot of the apartment block. There was already a crowd outside, listening and laughing, and the music continued, loud and muffled, up the staircase, the tapan still banging though there was little room for it around the corners. The mayor and his family could hear people opening their doors and clapping on the floors below, while they had fallen silent and stood transfixed by their own front door, shut solid in its frame. The music ascended slowly: there was a long way to climb, and those who played wind instruments blew less vigorously. Then they could hear the crowd on the landing outside, and the music finished, and there were three loud knocks on the door. The mayor began an argument with the party outside, winking at his family with each witticism, Begone with you! Unless you’re a millionaire! She won’t go for less!, with so much laughter, and Boris wishing he were not shut up in this crush.