Rana Dasgupta - Solo

He noticed the steam rising from the men’s wet coats in the corner. He hated this weather.

‘Five hundred thousand people left Bulgaria to become housemaids and construction workers …’

Most people in the city complained about the summer, but Plastic loved the heat. He would die if he didn’t have a job that took him frequently to hot places.

‘Our university-educated women went to work as nannies in Greece …’

Plastic don’t melt , as someone put it once.

Bozhidar ran off statistics with a bureaucrat’s ease. Gospodinov’s phone rang silently in his shirt pocket. He took it out, inspected the screen with distaste, and put it back. He interjected,

‘Mr Munari is here to do a job for us. Why are we giving him a history lesson?’

His caller persisted, but he ignored it, and through his shirt, where his heart was, came a blue flashing light.

Bozhidar pressed on.

‘Nowadays it is absolutely fashionable to say, In communist times everything was good! And now wild dogs are scaring people in the city and the roads are getting holes! ’

Plastic stole a glance at the clock. He was supposed to leave in forty-five minutes to attend the premiere of a biopic about a rapper he had worked with in the early days, when he ran a hip-hop label. An incredible talent who had died of an overdose.

‘But there is no going back, Mr Munari. The past is a disaster. We have to make a future …’

Plastic was still wondering whether or not to subject himself to the movie. The singer had been a collaborator and a friend, and Plastic didn’t know whether he wanted to watch his death again on the big screen.

He, Plastic, was portrayed in the movie by a scrawny twenty-something no-name actor.

‘The Ministry of Culture has employed an American PR firm to send out positive images of Bulgaria. We pay CNN and BBC to make nice articles about Bulgarian wine and sunshine destinations …’

The actor had come to meet him over a year ago. So you’re the real Plastic Munari! Plastic was so depressed at the guy’s ugly face he’d kicked him straight out.

His secretary came in with a tray of martinis. The room was turning dark in the winter afternoon, and she put on the lights. Gospodinov looked suspiciously into his cocktail glass. Plastic said,

‘I’m a little pressed for time, gentlemen. Perhaps you should tell me what it is you want?’

‘I want to smoke a cigarette,’ said Gospodinov, taking one from the packet and holding it between his fingers.

Plastic called his secretary.

‘Would you mind showing Mr Gospodinov to the fire escape? He would like to light a cigarette.’

Gospodinov took all three packets with him.

Bozhidar said,

‘We want you to make a global music superstar from Bulgaria.’

He watched Plastic carefully.

‘The people who run this world, Mr Munari, are not well informed. They have no patience to learn our history. We cannot attract them with rational arguments. They understand only celebrity.’

‘Do you have any specific musicians in mind? Because without that, it’s all academic.’

Bozhidar said,

‘Listen to me. For five centuries, our country was part of the Turkish Empire, full of every kind of music. Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Serbian, Gypsy. Then the communists banned everything. They sent expert musicologists to make police reports about musicians who used un-Bulgarian chords. Pop stars adored all over Bulgaria were taken to the camps for singing American songs …’

The truth was, Plastic had wanted for a long time to find a big musician from that region. That was why he had agreed to this meeting.

‘The old music was suppressed, and we did not even hum it in our heads …’

Plastic was known in the industry for the originality of his ear. Back when no one had thought of it, he had found big audiences for klezmer music and remixed Arab devotional chants for New York bars. He had turned small-time Pakistani qawwali singers and Cuban son pianists into some of the biggest recording properties in the world. But he had never found a musician from the Balkans, where they had some of the most exciting music in the world.

Bozhidar was saying,

‘Pirate cassettes broke the stranglehold. I was a teenager when the Gypsies started to smuggle in cassettes, and I can tell you, it electrocuted our brains! We heard heavy metal! Absolutely real music! We were bored of the hollow idealism going on for forty years, we wanted music from the heart. We wanted pain music! Teenagers in Bulgaria were pumping feelings: it was crazy times in our country and we were already old when we were twenty years.’

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.