Solo

by Rana Dasgupta

  Plastic was enjoying Bozhidar’s sudden verve.

  ‘Illegal Gypsy musicians became so famous that the communist state didn’t know what to do. Everything that was silenced came out again in joy, and the musicians walked like emperors. Music brought down the communist government, Mr Munari, because it showed clearly that everything illegal was beautiful and sophisticated and everything legal was shit.’

  The door opened, and Plastic’s secretary showed in Gospodinov. He smelt as if he had bathed in nicotine. He looked from Bozhidar to Plastic. He sat down.

  ‘So when can you begin?’

  Plastic eyed him coldly.

  ‘So far, I’ve not heard you make any proposal.’

  ‘Well: can you do it or not?’

  Plastic gave a smile of finality. He said,

  ‘I thank you, gentlemen, for your interesting presentation. But this is not how music is made. I need to start with talent, with artists. Great music doesn’t come about because there is a government strategy.’

  ‘That is exactly how it comes about,’ retorted Gospodinov.

  Plastic folded his hands.

  ‘It has been an interesting conversation. But now—’

  Bozhidar spread his hands to slow things down.

  ‘My superior is a little impatient,’ he said. ‘Don’t be offended. I ask you just one thing: come to Bulgaria. We will organise for you to hear every kind of Bulgarian music. You will find incredible artists. You will not regret it.’

  Plastic took his time. He said,

  ‘Let me give you some background, gentlemen. The record company I founded in the Bronx in the late seventies launched the brightest lights of hip-hop, and when I sold it to Universal, I became a very wealthy man. I left hip-hop behind and started this label. I invented what everyone now calls world music. I have an instinct for talent, and when I find an artist I want I’ll get him if I have to kill my own mother – and that’s why this label is bigger and better than anything else in the field. I have a seat on the board of Universal Music Group. Do you see what I’m getting at? My inner life is secure. I have no interest in the Bulgarian government or its objectives.’

  Bozhidar was sweating. He said,

  ‘I would like to say this to you, Mr Munari. Do not talk as if we are idiots. If we did not know who you are we would not be here. We know all about you and your country; it is you who know nothing about us. Try for one minute to imagine our perspective. You live in the richest nation on earth, and yet you speak as if you have acquired all your power with just your own abilities. In Bulgaria we are surrounded by people as talented as you, but their abilities go to waste. That is what we are here to change.’

  It was true that Plastic could not think of a single fact he knew about Bulgaria. He had a vague sense that it wasn’t much fun to live there, and Bozhidar’s speeches had done little to change that. And yet the man was convinced his obscure little country would have its fortunes transformed if people could only hear its music. Bulgaria grabs a chunk of the global pie with unique thirteen-time rhythms. There was something endearing about it.

  He suddenly remembered that there had been a record of Bulgarian folk music that had sold in the millions some years ago. He tried to think of the title.

  ‘I wasn’t trying to imply that you are idiots,’ he said.

  ‘Come to Sofia,’ said the young bureaucrat, more amiably. ‘I’ll take you to hear things you never imagined. And I’ll give you nice warm weather, not like here.’

  Looking into his cocktail, Plastic saw a tiny bubble escape from under the olive and surrender to the surface. He said,

  ‘Get in touch with my secretary about dates, and send me a plan.’

  9

  PLASTIC WAS IN A HOTEL ROOM in Sofia, staring at the winged statue in the square outside.

  Bozhidar said,

  ‘I’m afraid the prime minister cannot meet you. He is away on official business.’

  He appeared very regretful, and Plastic had the annoying feeling he was trying to show the level of his influence.

  He was waiting for Bozhidar to leave his room so he could take a shower and freshen up from his journey. He had no patience at this moment for the twelve-page itinerary Bozhidar had prepared.

  Plastic picked up his shampoo by way of a hint, but Bozhidar continued to read out the list of appointments. Plastic noted that two afternoons had been set aside for interviews with journalists, which he would cancel as soon as he could. It was not his style. He liked to go low key, his ears unburdened.

  Bozhidar was saying,

  ‘Tomorrow you will meet Daniela Ivanova. She is talented and beautiful, with a recent big hit for the Bulgarian version of Eye of the Tiger. In Bulgaria we are very obsessed with her breasts.’

  Later that day, Plastic was taken to attend the opening of a new business park. A delegation came to thank him for everything he was doing for the country.

  He said to Bozhidar,

  ‘Do these people understand why I’m here? I’ve come on my own account. What are they expecting from me?’

  Bozhidar waved it away. He took Plastic to the opening of the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Sofia Art Gallery, which his ministry had been planning for a year. There were speeches and self-satisfied toasts, and the city’s elite stood around with wine. Though they laughed among themselves, Plastic did not manage to get beyond formalities with anyone. He looked at the paintings and was astonished to see they were all paper facsimiles, and bad ones at that.

  The next two days passed slowly. He heard several mediocre bands. He had lunch with overeager teenage guitarists. A musicologist gave a lecture.

  Plastic was discouraged by Bozhidar’s behaviour. He had liked him in New York, but in his own environment, Bozhidar appeared humourless and excessively preoccupied with punctuality, and Plastic began to find his presence burdensome. Over dinner he gave the same speech about heavy metal he had given in New York, almost word for word, and Plastic felt he had exhausted the young man’s spontaneity in that first encounter.

  Gospodinov was nowhere to be seen.

  Plastic escaped for a couple of hours, eager to be alone. He wandered through old residential streets where the shutters were all fastened. He peered through the opaque glass of defunct shops. He looked at the rows of buzzers outside the houses, and the graffiti whose lettering he could not read.

  He admired the Alexander Nevsky church, and browsed the flea market in the square outside. The bric-a-brac calmed him down. He bought himself a presentation medal embossed with the heads of Lenin and Todor Zhivkov. It was very cheap, and probably fake, but that only made it more exotic.

  That night, Plastic resisted Bozhidar’s invitation to after-dinner drinks, and went back early to his hotel. He sat and listened to the excellent ensemble playing in the lobby, and afterwards had a long conversation with a man named Slavo, an original Gypsy violinist. Early the next morning, Plastic gave Bozhidar the slip. He packed his bag at 6 a.m., paid his bill and left the hotel.

  It was only April, but as he walked towards the bus station the morning sun was warm, and post-coital cats lay out in the shafts. Traffic was sparse at this hour, flashing double in the windows of the new boutiques. Plastic arrived at the bus station and read the timetable of departures for Belgrade, Bucharest and Istanbul. He conferred with a taxi driver, who had no problem taking him where he wanted to go.

  ‘How long will it take?’ asked Plastic.

  ‘Four hours,’ said the driver. ‘Maybe five.’

  ‘Great,’ said Plastic. ‘Give me a minute.’

  He went off in search of a toilet. At the edge of the forecourt was a broken hut with the sign of the minimum man. Plastic stuck his head in, and immediately withdrew. There was an inch of still water on the floor, and his entrance triggered a jazz-cloud of mosquitoes.

  He was thinking of braving it on tiptoe when he spotted in the distance a friendly wall, and a secluded alley behind. He ran over gratefully, still carrying his bags.

>   He was not the first to have discovered this spot. In fact there were two other men standing there now, and Plastic had to walk down to find a place. The wall was black with ancient urine, and Plastic held his breath against the stench while he added another layer.

  Still pissing, he suddenly felt an unaccountable need to turn around. He craned his neck and looked up at the dilapidated building behind him. No one was there. There was nothing but rows of empty windows, old and blind.

  The driver turns off the engine, and car doors slam. Such sounds are authoritative against this silence. Plastic stands for several moments in the expanse, motionless and uncertain, for the empty town is eerie, and he has impressions of ghosts.

  The wind gusts, now and then, and there are flocks of butterflies, but he is unprepared for the pig that emerges loudly from behind a collapsed truck, snorting unrestrainedly. He is quite embarrassed at the strength of his reaction. He watches the pig amble for a moment and sees it is tied with a long rope.

  He walks towards the building – which is a grand word for this flapping pile of corrugated iron. A conveyor belt, which once carried material from the ground level up to a hatch near the top of the factory, has collapsed, and lies shattered where it fell.

  He calls out, Boris! and larks take off from the trees. The silence does not alter, and he tries again.

  A young man appears in an entrance. He cannot be more than twenty years old. He is taken aback to be summoned by name.

  Plastic approaches, but not too close.

  ‘You’re Boris?’ he calls across the gap.

  The young man gives a nod.

  ‘Slavo sent me. He said you would be here. He said you play violin.’

  The young man stares for a long while. Then he disappears inside, and Plastic follows. The place is a death trap, with rusting tanks burst open, and great pipes ready to fall at any moment from the ceiling. There is a bed here, and several books, and it smells of rat piss and cooking.

  ‘You live alone?’

  Boris nods.

  ‘My grandmother was with me,’ he says. ‘She died a while ago.’

  He has his violin in his hand. It is strung with wires he must have made himself. He plays a slow and enigmatic air.

  Hearing the music, Plastic pictures himself walking along an empty road. Far ahead he sees people running towards him. When they draw close, they gesticulate fearfully to where they have come from, warning him against going there. They have no time to stop, and continue frantically on their way.

  More people come, and more – and the line of people fleeing soon becomes so dense that Plastic is forced to walk by the side of the road so they may pass. He shields his eyes to look at the horizon ahead, but he can see nothing: no smoke, no flames, no dust. ‘What are you running from?’ he asks the crowd, but there is no answer.

  Plastic says, ‘You composed that yourself?’

  The question is superfluous, and Boris does not expend effort on it. From outside comes the mahogany call of a woodpecker, which he answers on his instrument.

  There is an elastic energy in Plastic’s inner thighs: this is not some fake thing he has just heard. His senses are sharpened. Some nameless gratitude has descended on him and made his head light.

  He takes a CD player from his bag and puts the headphones over Boris’s ears. He reads the boy’s face, watches his eyes widen. It is one of Plastic’s old records. The best he has ever done.

  Boris has to sort a few things out before he leaves. He goes into a house and comes out with his violin case and a few possessions tied up in a sheet. He sets his pigs loose and speaks to them roughly. He touches his forehead to the earth and tastes the air with his tongue. Then he gets in the car.

  10

  KHATUNA WAS READING The Fountainhead when she realised she was pregnant. She was reading The Fountainhead and humming along to the song in her headphones. Her cigarette tasted perfect this morning.

  Her phone flashed. The message invited her to a dance party hosted by a foreign vodka company. A DJ was coming in from Paris.

  Somewhere between deleting the message and picking up her book, Khatuna realised she was pregnant with Kakha’s child.

  Kakha wanted their wedding to be the biggest event in Georgia since Old King David won Tbilisi, but Khatuna bargained him down to a small affair in the mountains.

  She was becoming wary of the dangers that lurked in crowds. Kakha spent the morning with the priest, walking out along a rocky path, and returning after several hours to pray in the church, the priest whispering in his ear while he knelt on the stone floor.

  The couple were married in the afternoon. Irakli had refused to come to a gangster wedding, so the guests were all from Kakha’s side.

  ‘I will follow you for ever,’ said Khatuna into Kakha’s ear. ‘I will be a woman in a veil in the desert, following you.’

  The crowd became drunk and festive. There were village musicians, and enormous piles of country khinkali, and the men danced, bellicose. Kakha disappeared and his daughter, Nata, talked to Khatuna about fame, and parties, and her fashion line that was opening up in London. Her leg was still in plaster because she had recently driven her Porsche into a wall.

  Khatuna savoured her feelings. She thought about Kakha. She pictured him looking at a waste patch of earth and imagining what he could build there. In the small of her back she had tattooed a great eye, so there would never be a time she was not looking at him.

  There were moments when she was terrified by the emotions that would be unleashed when her baby came into the world. The agonies she went through for her brother were already bad enough. In her pregnancy, she had stopped going anywhere without bodyguards. Her child would never be vulnerable to the dangers she had suffered: she would build defences so formidable that nothing could ever come close.

  She had recently moved her mother and brother into a bigger apartment with better security. She had her brother under surveillance now, but it was discreet, so he would not know.

  She left Nata talking and went to find Kakha. He was leaning against a wall outside listening to Vakhtang, who paced around him, ranting.

  ‘I’m your cousin. I’m family. Have you got so big you’ve forgotten your values?’

  ‘Who takes care of you, Vakhtang? I pay for your cars and your women, and you don’t do a stroke of work.’

  ‘I want to work! You give everything to her! People come, and you only introduce them to her. You sent her to those meetings in Dubai. You buy her diamonds. And now you’ve married her. What will happen to me? She doesn’t like me. She’ll kick me out of the house. You give her all the power.’

  ‘She’s a good businesswoman. She says she’ll do something and it’s done. Do you think you could ever have pulled off the deal she did with the Armenians? You’re erratic. You leave me in the dark about what you’re doing. You steal my friends’ cars and leave me to deal with the mess. You seem to think it’s only about dressing up. We’re running a big business. It’s no joke.’

  ‘I was managing the hotels just fine. Everything was fine until you pulled me out.’

  ‘Because you don’t understand politics, Vakhtang. You do something, and you carry on doing it, and you don’t realise that everything else has turned round a hundred and eighty degrees. Our situation is delicate now. You don’t realise what a fucking range of things I have to think about since those towers came down in New York. There’s a war in Afghanistan, the whole world is suddenly on our doorstep. The Americans are coming in here, muscling in on my oil, because they don’t want to depend on the Middle East any more. I have to think fast. You don’t understand these things. You don’t understand the big picture.’

  ‘I can learn,’ said Vakhtang. ‘I’m not an idiot.’

  ‘Don’t push me to say things I don’t want to say.’

  Vakhtang started kicking the wall.

  ‘I worship you, Kakha. Since I was a kid, I’ve always worshipped you.’

  ‘A lot of people worship me. Do
I put them all in charge of my business?’

  Later on, Kakha joined Khatuna in their bedroom. Khatuna smiled and said,

  ‘Our wedding night.’

  Kakha pushed the covers away and looked down at her body. The electric light threw rocky shadows behind her nipples.

  ‘A man can never compare to the beauty of a woman,’ he said. ‘There’s always that basic inequality.’

  ‘You still think I’m beautiful?’

  He kissed her shoulder. He said,

  ‘Can we announce our son yet?’

  ‘It may be a girl.’ She hit him playfully. ‘It’s still early. I want to be sure.’

  Kakha put his arms around Khatuna and held her against his body. He said,

  ‘I keep getting this dream. I get up in the middle of the night and that statue, the Mother of Georgia, is calling to me. I open the window and float out into the night, far above the ground. I drift over Tbilisi, and my eyes are like floodlights, and there’s nothing I cannot see.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you think it means?’

  He shrugged. He kissed her ear. He said,

  ‘I got a phone call this evening. Some of our men were attacked in the lobby of the Sheraton. Four men came out of nowhere. We lost two of our own guys, and we killed three of theirs.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Khatuna, and she put her hand involuntarily to her stomach.

  ‘It was a mess,’ said Kakha. He sighed helplessly.

  ‘Listen: I want to take you on a little drive,’ he said. ‘Now we’re married, there’s something I want to show you.’

  They sped out of town in a procession of white Toyota Landcruisers, taking no notice of the roadblocks where policemen gathered bribes.

  ‘You and I need a proper army now,’ said Kakha. ‘That’s what keeps me awake at night. With the Americans coming in, our stability’s falling apart.’