Solo

by Rana Dasgupta

  In their official statements, however, the police emphasised that Boris himself was not involved with these activities.

  Item

  The CEO of Universal said,

  ‘Are we going to let him attend, or not?’

  ‘He’s the brightest star this company has,’ said Plastic. ‘Not sending him would be suicide.’

  The CEO had lost interest in Plastic’s opinions, and did not reply.

  ‘I agree with Plastic,’ said somebody else. ‘We can’t pull an artist like that out of the Grammy Awards. He’s nominated in every category there is. We’d look like idiots.’

  ‘The song that made this guy most famous,’ said the CEO, ‘we had no hand in. We don’t own it, and we’re not making money from it. So you tell me: how can we put him forward as our guy in the awards?’

  ‘I know we all wish that song had never happened. But let’s just admit it is a gorgeous piece of music. You can’t take that away. It’s like Louis Armstrong singing “Wonderful World” – you just can’t argue. Everybody loves it. We put that guy up in the Grammys and it knocks everyone else out of the park.’

  ‘How did that song get away from us?’ said the CEO. ‘Can someone remind me how the fuck that one got away?’

  Item

  When Irakli came home, the radio was on in Khatuna’s room and her door was open. She was standing naked in front of her mirror. Her dark hair fell tousled down her back, and above the curve of her buttocks was tattooed a terrible black eye.

  She was shooting video of herself with her phone.

  Irakli was paralysed with confusion. He crept out of the front door, walking backwards, undoing his steps. When he came back, later, he was careful to make a lot of noise.

  Khatuna was dressed. She was putting on make-up. There was welding going on outside, and shadows kept flashing on the ceiling.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Irakli.

  ‘We’re going to a casino,’ said Khatuna. ‘I want to gamble. Tonight I want to drink and gamble like a falling empress.’

  ‘People never win in casinos. They win once, and then they give it away.’

  ‘I’m not going there to win,’ said Khatuna. ‘I’m going to lose. I’ll take Plastic’s money and bleed it out on the tables.’

  ‘What has Plastic done?’

  ‘Nothing! Plastic is not capable of doing a fucking thing.’

  She had drawn Cleopatra flourishes on her eyes, and her lipstick was wild. She turned away from the mirror.

  ‘No man will ever be Kakha,’ she said. ‘All my life I will be in mourning.’

  Irakli said her secret name, silently and to himself. He thought she looked like a whore.

  Item

  Irakli’s book of poetry was complete. He laid the manuscript on the table. He did it with some ceremony, and the parrot said, Dinner is ready!

  ‘Androgyne,’ proclaimed Irakli, reading out the title. For his book began with lost bliss: when creatures were whole, before they were separated into yearning halves of men and women. On the title page was a quotation from Plato:

  When a person meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, he is lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy. The two don’t want to spend any time apart from each other. These are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. No one can think it is only sexual intercourse that they want, that this is the reason why they find such joy in each other’s company. It appears to be something else which the soul evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which it has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.

  For a moment, Irakli was distracted by the pig, which was sitting by his chair, staring at him. Sometimes the animal was uncanny. Irakli stared back at it. He thought, You’re the oldest creature I know. You’re only a few months old, and everything is ancient about you.

  He opened the manuscript and began to recite the book aloud. He read from beginning to end. Somewhere along the way he went silent, and read in his head.

  It became dim in the room as he went through, and when he had finished he rubbed his eyes from the strain.

  Nauseous waves flowed over his skin, like an oil spillage in a mustard field. He tossed the manuscript on the floor and covered his eyes with his hands.

  His book was completely worthless.

  20

  BORIS STOPS OFF to buy a car. It is impossible to get anywhere in Los Angeles without one, and they are going to be there for several days. He chooses a blue convertible, and puts it on his credit card.

  Irakli sits in the passenger seat. Boris says,

  ‘I used to drive a tractor on the land, and sometimes an old Lada, while we still had gasoline. But never on roads like this.’

  He is wearing sunglasses to cover up a black eye.

  There are poor people all around. There’s an old man singing in a baby carriage, and scabby children passed out on air-conditioning vents. Skeletal women with bulging eyes are motioning to the traffic, trying in vain to sell themselves.

  ‘Khatuna’s going insane, knowing I’m out here with you,’ says Irakli.

  ‘Your sister doesn’t know what friendship is,’ says Boris. ‘She’s never experienced it herself and it makes her insecure.’

  They drive for a long time in silence. Irakli looks drained, and has little to say. Gas stations announce themselves with fluttering pennants, like fairgrounds. There are palm trees, and the largest houses they have ever seen, and pale people staring out. They imagine they will chance upon some inviting destination. They imagine they will see places to stop. But they find nothing of the sort, and finally they drive back to the hotel.

  When Boris’s first award is announced, Plastic seizes him with unfeigned delight. Enmity is forgotten, for Plastic never stopped believing in the music. He removes Boris’s violin deftly from his hand and pushes him into a funnel of smiling, clapping people.

  Boris’s own music plays at excruciating volume through the speakers, but it has become unrecognisable. It has become military. He is passed from usher to usher, and propelled on to the stage. A tall woman hands him a trophy, a gold gramophone player, and puts a mike to his mouth. He looks at the audience head on, so many, the sweeping lights brown through his sunglasses.

  The woman’s teeth are like beacons.

  ‘Boris, you have such an amazing story.’

  Her voice does not come from her. There is the impress of a million eyes, and his name is sprinting on the screens over his head.

  He forces words into the microphone, and his own voice is stolen too.

  ‘I spent a decade in an abandoned town, alone with the animals. Everyone should try it.’

  The audience laughs, and he is stupefied by the scale, cameras spinning over his head. The many images of Boris turn their eyes upon the multitude.

  ‘I’m not joking,’ he says.

  The cackling gallery gives way to clapping, and his music thunders again. He is led off stage, and with all the video screens it is like a hall of mirrors finding a way back.

  ‘No! Come back! We must have Boris!’

  The man and woman who stand for the cameras either side of Boris possess two of the most well-known faces in the world, but he does not recognise them. He is bent over, laughing in the flashes, the woman’s bare arm brushing his cheek, the journalists shouting.

  ‘Boris! Take off your glasses!’

  Irakli stands by, watching. He has become entirely invisible. He stands under the blazing lamps, and still people try to walk through him.

  Plastic and Khatuna are standing near by. Khatuna wears dark make-up and has drawn silver lightning flashes on her cheeks. A journalist wants a comment from Plastic.

  ‘Is it true the American music industry is being taken over by eastern European gangs?’

  Plastic is smiling for the cameras. He says,

  ‘That’s an insane question. Who gave you an idea like that?’

  Security men are trying to pr
otect the demigods who walk here so close to mortals. The love they inspire is so consuming that ordinary people cannot keep themselves from throwing themselves at them and ruining their hair. As they pass through the doors into the evening, humans line up along the immortal corridor and scream with the pain of adoration. Khatuna walks down the carpet on Plastic’s arm, looking at the goggling, afflicted faces, and wonders again how American youths can get so fat.

  Boris leaves a cosmic shower behind him, as the camera flashes fade.

  ‘Where’s your girlfriend, Boris?’ shouts a photographer.

  Boris is full of witty remarks. His hands are full of trophies. He is handsome and magnetic, and Irakli is entirely inconspicuous by his side. He looks at the way Boris holds himself and realises there are parts of his friend he will never know.

  The four of them get into the same limo. The car doors shut and they can hear their voices again. Boris seizes the champagne with relish, and pours four glasses. Khatuna drinks hers straight down and grabs the bottle.

  ‘Are you OK, Irakli?’ asks Boris. ‘You’re very quiet.’

  Irakli nods, and forces a smile.

  Plastic’s face radiates gladness. He locks an elbow around Boris’s neck and kisses the top of his head.

  ‘That’s my boy!’ he shouts. ‘My genius boy!’

  Plastic and Boris exchange tributes, and Khatuna gets increasingly impatient. There’s a line of limousines blocking the street, and theirs has hardly moved.

  ‘How far is this party?’ she asks irritatedly.

  ‘It’s in that building.’ Plastic points about a hundred metres down the road.

  They are motionless in the traffic. Irakli’s face is turned towards the crowds outside, and Boris plays a snatch of music on his violin, though there is hardly space to move a bow. It’s a tune from his album, and he hams it up, crossing his eyes and playing like an idiot. Khatuna can’t stand it, and she shouts over the music at him,

  ‘Is it true you’re dating that actress?’

  She manages to make it sound like an insult. Boris says,

  ‘I hate that word. Are we calendars?’

  ‘Jerk,’ she says.

  Boris puts his window down, and hangs his arm outside the car. His violin is lying in his lap.

  Khatuna says,

  ‘You’re losing your hair. I can see it in this light. You’ll be bald by the time you’re thirty.’

  Plastic glares, trying to rein it in.

  Suddenly Khatuna seizes the violin from Boris’s lap and begins to whack it against the window ledge. Plastic tries to save the instrument but she roars like an animal and her strength is unexpected. She smashes the violin three times, and it is entirely destroyed, only the strings holding the pieces together. She tosses the carcass through the open window.

  It is Plastic who turns on her, hits her in the mouth and shouts obscenities. She laughs in his face, and touches her finger to her bleeding lip. A glass is broken, and there is champagne down Plastic’s suit.

  Boris turns up at the party with nothing in his hands. Smiling moguls put their arms around him and lead him to the right people.

  Irakli stands on his own, watching. The room is full of faces he has seen every day on television. Pop stars and movie stars are serving up smiles, and using gestures they have prepared beforehand. They are stealing glances at each other’s clothes. They fawn and are fawned upon: everyone loves everyone, but it is not the love of humans.

  The most famous woman in the world is here, a woman so impossibly celebrated and beautiful that she must sit in her own private corner behind a velvet rope, surrounded by young men selected for their looks and their ability to keep talking.

  Previously, at home, Irakli has watched some of these people with rapt attention, his pupils wide. If he has ever speculated about being in a room with them, he has probably imagined his emotions in a heightened state. But here he is excessively bored. Waiters are passing with cocktails and he takes them two at a time, and still he is unable to lose himself. The banality is strangely devastating.

  Plastic and Khatuna are off among the crowds, sparking with their rancour. A bruise is coming up on Khatuna’s cheek, and she seems to be showing it off. Plastic is trying to be charismatic, but the strain is showing, and it’s noticeable that people walk away from his conversation.

  The most famous woman in the world sends a message to Boris, inviting him to join her in her private corner, for she is not above the fascination of ordinary people. Boris sits down next to her and she asks him questions about himself. She says,

  ‘You’re quite a normal size. I imagined you would be big.’

  Boris laughs. ‘People are getting smaller. Haven’t you noticed?’

  He becomes restless during their conversation. He does not want to talk. While she is asking how he feels about the great number of his awards, he takes her cool hand under the table and positions it firmly on his penis.

  The most famous woman in the world does not remove her hand. She looks him in the eye and says,

  ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I’m a vegetarian.’

  Boris matches her gaze. He is enjoying himself. He says, obscurely,

  ‘I’ve heard of vegetarians. Don’t they lose their talents young?’

  Irakli is on his own. He listens to conversations about the sensational hookers who have come into town for this night. He cannot get close to his friend, who is cocooned in the corner, and he decides to get up and dance. He spills his drink over his clothes, and curses. He starts to move to the music, and he knows he is very bad: he cannot hear the rhythm or master his body. He bumps into somebody, who turns round, complaining and indignant. Eventually Irakli leaves. A camera flashes as he comes out of the door, the photographer like a jumpy sniper realising too late that the person coming out is no one.

  Irakli walks back to the hotel and takes the elevator to the twenty-first floor. His room has been altered in his absence, the signs of his existence removed. They have folded back the corner of the bed-covers, and put away his things. There is a promotional package from Universal Records on the table. He takes out Boris’s CD and looks at it again.

  He looks at himself in the mirror. Turquoise half-moons are buried under his eyes. It is true that he has become difficult to see.

  He unwraps the cellophane from Boris’s CD, and puts it into the player. He pours himself a drink from the minibar and lies down on the bed. Water has seeped into the corner of the ceiling of this expensive hotel, yellowing it, and making stale bubbles. Irakli presses Play on the remote.

  Boris plays the crepuscule encounter, and the eighty leagues of sleep. The fulminating spiral-hair, the pale glow in the deep. It is beautiful and poisonous. Irakli lets himself be swallowed by the hungry ear. He bleeds blindness and weaves a mattress of vertigo; he wishes he could sacrifice himself to this loveliness. Boris plays the Arab shirt she saw and loved, the wart-faced Tetrarch and the falcon on his glove. Irakli weeps in the dark room, for this is perfect sound. Above his stone head, a congregation of wild scintillas spend themselves in the night.

  Through the music, Irakli hears Khatuna and Plastic come back to the room next door. They too have left the party early, and Irakli hears the inarticulate bark of their discord. While Boris plays the insect mother, while he thanks the steamy air, Irakli can hear irate sounds coming through the wall, which ebb and flow, gather and evolve. The noises become rhythmic, and soon the sex is loud and undeniable.

  The CD comes to an end.

  Irakli lies in the darkness, listening. Plastic and Khatuna stab each other with obscenities, and Irakli coils up in a whorl.

  At length he gets up, sits down at the desk, and writes on the hotel branded notepaper.

  The dream of the embryo on the night before birth

  The dream

  Held prisoner in my dark head

  Wants to escape, and prove its innocence to everyone on the outside.

  I hear its impatient voice,

  See its gesture
s, its furious

  Menacing state.

  It doesn’t know that I too am only someone’s dream.

  If I were its jailor

  I’d have set it free.

  Irakli reads it back to himself, stands up, and tidies his belongings. He takes Boris’s CD out of the player and puts it back in its case. He takes a look around to check that everything is just so. He opens the sliding door to the balcony. He climbs on the rail and sits for a moment, his feet swinging above twenty-one floors of void. Then he lets himself go.

  Manatee

  21

  WHEN BORIS ARRIVED at Khatuna’s New York apartment, he found the front door standing open.

  Khatuna had a scarf around her head and was packing up the house. She looked up when Boris came in, but she did not greet him. She was shrouding things in bubble wrap. Paintings and vases, and many other objects whose shapes had been obscured in the wrapping. She was gagging their mouths with plastic.

  The air stank of cigarettes.

  Boris looked over the piles of clothes arranged in rows across the wooden floor.

  ‘Are you leaving?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  He nodded. He saw clothes of Irakli’s that he recognised. There was the shirt that was drenched in the rain on the night they had met. There was a pen he used to carry. On the top of a pile of books he saw the volume of poetry he had given to Irakli after returning from tour.

  Boris listened to the slight noises in the room: the hum of glass, the collision of dust, the echo of before. There was nothing here that did not whisper of Irakli.