Rana Dasgupta - Solo

Khatuna said,

‘Let me tell you something, because it doesn’t matter any more. I made reports about you to the FBI. I implicated you in all sorts of crimes. You’ve done some questionable things and it wasn’t difficult to exaggerate them a bit. I know a lot about crime. Those guys aren’t very complex, I know how to get inside their heads. It’s only a matter of time before they come down on you.’

She stood up and dusted cigarette ash off her knee.

‘It doesn’t matter now. I wanted you to go to jail and suffer. But now I don’t give a shit. All I want to do is smoke cigarettes in this apartment until I’ve inhaled everything he’s left behind.’

Boris walked over to the door.

‘Bye-bye, Khatuna,’ he said.

‘Wait!’ she said, and ran with sudden urgency out of the room.

He heard her opening doors in the kitchen, and the icy scrape of the freezer. She came back weighed down, her arms laden with a ruddy frozen mass.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take this away.’

She put it into Boris’s arms and he realised in horror that it was Irakli’s pig. Its throat had been slit.

‘How could you do this?’ he cried.

The pig was solid against Boris’s chest, and turned it numb. He began to cry like a baby.

‘How could you do it?’ he said. ‘This pig was part of Irakli. It’s like killing him again.’

‘No,’ said Khatuna. She had ice crystals on her T-shirt, and she was rubbing her hands to warm them up. ‘It was like killing you.’

22

THE CEO CALLED PLASTIC into his office. Plastic was in his gym suit. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. The CEO massaged a pile of business cards, aligning the edges. He said,

‘I’m sorry to have to do this, Plastic, but you’re fired.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I’m not happy about it, but you haven’t left me any choice.’

‘What?’

The CEO put his neat pile of business cards into a golden box. He straightened the keyboard of his computer. He was in a mood for tidying up.

‘Look, I don’t know what you’re mixed up in. But it’s got to a stage where this company’s looking questionable, and I can’t have that.’

‘You can’t really believe all this! I thought you were on my side!’

‘I’ve just been interviewed by the FBI,’ said the CEO. ‘I didn’t appreciate it.’

‘Take a look at me. Look at the state I’m in. They’ve taken over my apartment: I can’t go home. I slept in the office — I haven’t had a shower for two days. They’ve taken my paintings, my papers, my laptop, they’ve had me in a room for two days, asking questions. They want to know where Boris is — how the hell do I know where he is? They’re asking me what are my links to organised crime. They arrived with piles of my bank statements and asked me to explain cheques I wrote ten years ago.’

The CEO did not feel obliged to comment. Plastic raised his voice.

‘That guy who committed suicide — I hardly knew him! I didn’t exchange ten words with the guy. He was my girlfriend’s brother, that’s true, but I hardly knew him. Now she’s my ex-girlfriend because she hasn’t spoken to me since it happened. Look: he was a depressed poet, and he committed suicide. End of story. They are manufacturing a crime around it because he was a friend of Boris, who has disappeared off the face of the planet. Because he was from Georgia and his sister was involved with a gangster — and they think the only thing that comes out of that part of the world is crime. Well, I have nothing to do with any of it!’

He seemed short of breath.

‘You’re an idiot if you fire me!’ he said. ‘If you believe there is any truth to this!’

The CEO exhaled into the mask of his hands.

‘Someone is setting me up!’ yelled Plastic. ‘I don’t know who. But the FBI knows things about me they couldn’t know. There are these Bulgarian bureaucrats who took a dislike to me when I stole Boris from under their noses. Maybe it’s them. I don’t know! All I’m saying is someone is cooking this up and you’re swallowing it without asking a single question.’

‘I’m sorry, Plastic. It’s not what it is, but what it seems that matters. Suicides? Artists disappearing? It’s all gone too far. All the newspapers can talk about is America’s new criminal underworld. And Boris is the poster boy. Boris is the Pied Piper, leading us all into the shit.’

‘He’s more famous than he ever was,’ said Plastic. ‘Universal has a legend on its hands.’

‘Do I have to remind you that we don’t own his music ? It floats free, remember, in some very cool, post-industrial sort of way, and all the lawsuits in the world are not going to bring it back. That’s how my differences with you began, remember?’

‘Do you remember who you’re talking to? I’m not one of your managers, sitting on my suited ass. I’m Plastic Munari, for Christ’s sake! You can’t do this to me!’

‘You were great,’ said the CEO. ‘I’m not denying it.’

After this conversation, Plastic was not allowed to go back to his office. He was escorted down to the lobby. Security men put their hands on him and he lost his cool.

‘I need to get my stuff from my office, I’m not letting anyone else do that. I’ve worked fifteen years in this company: at least let me pick up my fucking things!’

Above the lobby, people had come out on to the landings to see Plastic evicted. The whole company was there, murmuring.

‘We’ll get everything sent to your home,’ said a security guard.

‘I can’t get into my home!’ shouted Plastic. ‘The FBI has taken over my home. Does no one understand anything I say? Just give me half an hour in my office to pick up my personal things. I have antique paintings. I have two eighteenth-century globes in there — do you think I trust you people to pack them up?’

Eventually, the security team forced Plastic out on to the sidewalk, where all New York was around him and there was no point shouting any more.

He got a taxi and checked into a hotel. He had a shower and changed back into the same clothes. He went out for a walk. He had to buy some deodorant. He had to calm down.

There were offices and lively restaurants around him, and he tried to get out of their way. The cacophony of clothes boutiques and hairdressers grated on him, and he looked for emptier streets. He turned a few corners and found his way out of the crowds.

He passed the red-light district, peaceful at this time of day. He saw a naked arm stretched out of a window, and a woman reaching on tiptoe, trying to put a sandwich into the hand.

He walked for a long time, not really knowing where he was going. He passed liquor stores and warehouses, and the roads became cracked. He saw two men labouring under the bonnet of a car, a crushed can of oil on the road beside them. He saw a cat sleeping in a doorway, and a young girl crying in an alley — and then no one at all. He reached a part of town where entire skyscrapers stood vacant. He walked aimlessly, and ran his hands along a wall.

Evidently, few people ever came here, and the thistles that grew between the paving slabs came up to his thigh. The cars parked here were old models, and they had merged with the tarmac and the trees. There were clocks on buildings, stopped at different times. The area was abandoned.

Plastic was surprised, therefore, to see an open music shop. The lights were on, and the windows had sparkling displays. Above the entrance was a wooden sign carved with lyres, and decorated with gold script. Plastic pushed at the door, and a bell tinkled inside.

‘Good afternoon,’ said the owner. He was busy polishing the keys of a clarinet, and spoke to him in the mirror.