Rana Dasgupta - Solo

She stood very still as he nibbled her lobe, trying to work out whether she liked it. She said,

‘Do you have a gun?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I like that tattoo in the small of your back. I feel I’m being watched.’

‘That eye is not watching you .’

He looked at her curiously, and drained his coffee. He said,

‘I have to get to the gym.’

She looked at him, incredulous.

‘You’re leaving?’

‘I work out every Sunday morning.’

‘Do you have a beautiful young woman in your house every Sunday morning?’

‘I get grumpy if I don’t work out.’

Khatuna curled her lip with distaste.

‘You don’t love women,’ she said.

‘We’ll see each other again, won’t we?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

After he left she wanted only to get out of his house. She collected her clothes and took a taxi home. She was unhappy to find that Irakli was not there. She fretted, and paced between rooms. He refused to carry a mobile, so she could not call him.

The only life in the house was the parrot in the kitchen. Khatuna had bought it as a present for Irakli so he would have company while she was at work. She took the cover off the cage, and the parrot scratched animatedly at the mesh, reciting all its phrases. Khatuna interrogated the bird, asking where Irakli could be.

‘ Bye-bye ,’ it said. ‘ Good morning Baghdad .’

She shushed in exasperation and kicked off her high heels. She called Plastic to see whether he would know how to contact Boris, but he did not answer his phone.

‘His fucking gym,’ she thought.

She put on her slippers and lit a cigarette. She slid open the balcony door and sat on the chair she kept there. The storm had left a damp, cool morning, but Khatuna felt claustrophobic in sealed-up American homes, and liked to have access to the sky. The balcony was the most satisfying thing about this house, with its arabesque decoration, and ferns hanging down from the terrace above.

She sat with her eyes fixed on the front door, imagining the catastrophic things that could have happened to her brother while she was away with a strange man. She kicked one leg nervously and watched her slipper bounce on her foot. Suddenly she had the feeling that she looked exactly like her mother, and this made her even more anxious.

The door opened, eventually, and Irakli walked in with his umbrella.

‘Where have you been? ’ she shouted resentfully.

He looked her up and down. He said,

‘You’re still wearing the same dress.’

‘So what?’

‘Who were you with?’

‘I went home with that producer. He’s very rich.’

She felt like punishing him now. She said,

‘He made that guy Boris out of nothing.’

Irakli came out on to the balcony and looked out across town. Just a couple of blocks away, the Empire State Building sparkled after its recent restoration. Khatuna said,

‘Where were you?’

‘I slept at Boris’s house.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Why did he want to go home with you? ’

Irakli shrugged wanly.

‘What did he want from you?’ she asked.

‘We talked all night,’ said Irakli, still high with it. ‘I had an amazing time. It was like running into an unknown brother by mistake.’

‘Did he want to have sex with you?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Khatuna inspected her brother suspiciously. She said,

‘His smile was like a gay man’s.’

‘All you can think of is sex,’ Irakli said. ‘You don’t know anything else that people can do together. You should try and imagine.’

Khatuna smirked.

‘If I want advice about sex, I’ll ask someone with a bit of first-hand knowledge.’

Irakli leant on the rail and looked at the clouds, hanging like white rocks in the sky. There were sirens in every part of town. The sign on the side of the Empire State Building said in massive letters, For RENT .

15

HOW MANY TIMES has Ulrich imagined himself knocking at an American door, and finding behind it a young man with a resemblance to himself?

All those images accompany him now as he enters Boris’s building and takes the elevator to the forty-fifth floor. Everything has the echo of presentiment.

He rings the bell at Boris’s door. His heart is throbbing. He has put on good clothes, but he is old and does not resemble a father. The words have gone out of his head.

Boris answers brusquely.

He is taller than Ulrich expected. He is not wearing a shirt, and he carries his violin in his hand. Round his neck he wears a pendant on a string: it is made from gnarled pig leather, and looks vaguely obscene. There is a bad scar in his side, which makes Ulrich mourn.

They stare at each other for a time. Ulrich feels ashamed that he has reached such an age while Boris is still so young, and he is all too aware of how he must appear. This morning, with unsteady hand, he shaved the top off a pimple, which now bleeds periodically over his chin.

He looks past Boris into the apartment. It is full of cardboard boxes, neatly stacked, and labelled with a skull-and-crossbones hazard sign. On the floor are wood chippings, duct tape and other packing paraphernalia.

Ulrich would love to go inside, to sit for a while. He begins,

‘I am—’

It is absurd to say it like this. He does not know this boy. It would be an offence to say what he wants to say. He swallows several times to regain control of his larynx.

‘Will you play for me?’ he says in Bulgarian. ‘I would like it so much.’

He studies the stubble on Boris’s face. He sees his badly cut hair, his violin bow twitching in his hand, his youthful eyes shining with suspicion, the impatient muscles in his bare arms.

Boris relaxes his grip on the door handle, and for a moment Ulrich thinks he is going to let him in. But at the last minute, the young face turns wary, and Boris shuts the door. Ulrich’s tense shoulders slump, and he lets out his breath.

I was too eager , he says to himself in the corridor. He could see it. He doesn’t want some stranger coming and making claims on him .

But he smiles to himself, because even this unsuccessful contact has made him happy.

I have to be patient , he thinks.

He writes a polite note to Boris, telling him how he can contact him, and slips it under the door.

Boris and Plastic work late nights on the album. They are light headed with it, and need little sleep. Something wonderful is emerging, unlike any music they have ever heard.

Plastic has unexpected insights, and Boris gains respect for a kind of knowledge he has not encountered before. Plastic knows how to finish things: to push and polish until they slot into perfection.

Boris has bought himself recording equipment and sometimes turns up with strange sounds he wants to use on the album. He’s written a duet for violin and the rhythmic near-far moan of an industrial vacuum cleaner. Plastic doesn’t think it belongs here.

‘In my home town,’ explains Boris, ‘sounds lasted a long time. Here there’s so much other noise, they’re stifled immediately. I want to get that feeling in. The sounds desperate for space, all dying young.’

Plastic tries to set him right.

‘You’re at the beginning of your career,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to say everything in one go.’

Boris doesn’t look at him while he speaks. Plastic continues,

‘I’m not thinking about one album. I’m thinking about how we can make the next five albums. Ten. I’m thinking how we can sustain you as a great artist until you’re seventy years old.’