Rana Dasgupta - Solo

The CEO ignored him.

‘What’s the latest on our situation?’

‘Without knowing all the facts,’ said the lawyer, ‘it’s very clear that Boris is in multiple breach of contract. He seems to be willing to record with anyone who turns up with a microphone. Four other labels have issued original music by him. Some small pieces, one full-length seventy-two-minute album. Available for download on the internet.’

‘Maybe Boris didn’t know?’ suggested Plastic. ‘Maybe they recorded this stuff without him knowing?’

‘It’s possible,’ said the lawyer. ‘That’s why I say I don’t know all the facts. But the quality of these recordings suggests Boris made them in a studio. He knew what he was doing.’

‘All this is in the last two months,’ said the CEO. ‘His album’s only been out two months and already it’s through the roof. That kid should be promoting it with every cell in his body. Instead he’s recording other stuff on the side. Where did he even get time to write all this new material?’

Plastic said,

‘Some of it he was writing here. Experimental music that we couldn’t put on our album. The rest — I don’t know. You know what he’s like. It pours out of him, he doesn’t need time to think it up.’

‘All that is our property, goddammit, circulating out there for free without so much as a credit to this company. What the hell are we doing?’

‘I’m dealing with it,’ said Plastic. ‘I’ve left him a hundred messages.’

‘Oh, you’ve left messages ,’ said the CEO savagely. ‘I’m sorry , I didn’t realise you’d left messages . So what am I getting concerned about?’

There was silence in the room. Under the table, the head of Verve Records typed a message on his phone. The CEO said,

‘I don’t need convincing about this guy’s music. His album’s one of the great achievements of this company. It proves why big music companies like us are still relevant. It shows we can still pull genius out of our ass. This kid’s like Piaf or Armstrong or Elvis — people will always pay money for him. He’s got a long career ahead: endorsements, collaborations, soundtracks — a solid revenue stream with no end in sight, which you’ll all agree is a ray of hope in today’s bullshit market. So you’ll forgive me if I’m a little sensitive when things go awry. I’m hearing a lot of strange things about this guy: unscheduled concerts, unauthorised recordings, trips to Morocco no one tells us about. Someone has to tell him how we do things.’

He looked around the circle of music mavens. He said,

‘If you have to get on a plane, Plastic, and hold his hand the entire tour, then that’s what you have to do.’

Plastic left the meeting cursing his colleagues and cursing Boris.

Outside, there was sleet in the street lights: it was one of those dark January five o’clocks that made him loathe New York. He buttoned his coat as he walked. The aerial highways seemed empty, and when sometimes an engine strained overhead, its Doppler fall was like a dirge.

Plastic had worked single-mindedly on Boris’s album for all this time, and now he was wondering whether his genius musician had taken him for a ride. He got home and his phone rang. He leapt for it, but it was Khatuna, not Boris. She was coming over. He almost said he couldn’t make it, but didn’t have the energy to invent an excuse.

They went downstairs for a meal in a small Italian place. The place was full of rich foreign tourists, and did nothing to improve Plastic’s mood. When they came back up, Khatuna lit a cigarette, which he’d told her not to do in his house. She said vacantly,

‘What do you want to do?’

He had no conversation. They went into the bedroom. They undressed and lay on the bed. But Plastic was unable to make love.

‘You’re disgusting,’ she said, rolling over. ‘You sleep with a beautiful young woman, trying to get your youth back, and still it’s not enough.’

His phone rang again, fallen out on the bed. She grabbed it and turned it off. Plastic said angrily,

‘That might have been Boris.’

‘Boris, Boris!’ she cried. ‘Everyone is fucking obsessed!’

She threw his phone across the room.

‘I hate your little phone. It makes you look like a woman.’

‘I thought phones were supposed to be small,’ he said impatiently.

‘That’s so old,’ she said contemptuously. ‘Kakha’s phone was huge like a fucking BMW. With diamonds.’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ said Plastic.

Khatuna picked up her jacket from the floor, and reached inside for another cigarette.

‘Don’t smoke in my house,’ said Plastic.

‘I want to smoke,’ she said.

She started to put her clothes on.

When the door slammed behind her, Plastic picked up his phone and went to sit on the toilet. He dialled Boris’s number again and again. He called the other members of the band. Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, yellow and naked, he listened to the phone ringing endlessly in another country. Then he sent a grim torpedo into the underworld.

Boris came back from his tour, but he didn’t come to see Irakli. Irakli did not hear from him, nor could he get an answer on his phone. Eventually he decided to go to his apartment.

Boris wanted to get out, and they walked together. Boris told a story from Prague.

‘This guy came to meet me at the airport when I arrived, said he wanted me to do the music for his film. I discovered he was a famous film director. He took me to a restaurant and told me the story of the film and how he wanted the music to be. There was no time at all, I was only there for three days, but he said, I know you can do it . I sketched some things out with the band and on the last night after the gig he screened the film without audio and we improvised to the images. It started at three a.m., there were just ten or twelve people in the room, the actors were all there, absolutely silent. We played through in one take and went straight to the airport.’

He played the melodies to Irakli on his violin as they walked. They came to the gates of an old cemetery, and Irakli led them in.

‘You have no idea how much money he paid me,’ Boris continued. ‘I came back with a suitcase of money from this trip. People paid me to do anything. They paid me to record a piece for four minutes. They paid me to come to their restaurant. I have so much money I can buy you anything you want.’

They sat down on a bench. Boris said,

‘Where’s your umbrella?’

‘It was stolen,’ said Irakli unhappily. ‘Some bastard picked it up in a café and walked away with it.’

Boris studied him.

‘You don’t look well.’

‘Why didn’t you call me?’ Irakli burst out accusingly. ‘You’ve been back for days. I’m having a terrible time.’

Boris stared in surprise.

‘I needed a few days to rest,’ he said.

Irakli tried to contain himself. He said,

‘I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. My skin’s peeling off. I walk around the city and everything makes me angry. I can’t write at all. I hate you because it’s no effort for you. I struggle with every single word. I wish I’d never met you. I wish you’d get out of my head and leave me alone.’

A funeral was going on in a far corner of the graveyard. Mourners huddled around the grave, and snatches of the priest’s voice came in on the air. Boris said,

‘Look, I’ve been playing concerts non-stop for three months. I’ve been with people all the time. That’s all. I needed a few days on my own.’

Irakli studied him. He hung his head in his hands.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Something’s happening to me I don’t understand, and I can’t talk to my sister any more. I don’t want to see anyone except you, and you’re never here.’