Solo

Two other men joined their table, and more beer came. The table was soaked with spilt drink. A large group of people, actors evidently, came into the bar and took over two more tables; and now the noise of arguments and conversations became such that you could hardly hear the person next to you. One man brought out some dog-eared pages from his pocket, offering to read his poems, but everyone protested scornfully.

Boris’s face was shiny in the close air. He asked Ulrich something inconsequential, and Ulrich soon found himself discoursing about music. He told him about jazz, which Boris had never seen; he described the shows in Berlin, and explained about Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson. ‘If only you could have been there,’ he kept saying, because he could not find words to convey the music. He told him about the women who dressed as men and the men who dressed as women, and how no one took any notice in Berlin when they saw lovers of the same sex, for everything was possible in that place. There were people from all over the world, and all they cared about was to do things as well as human beings could do them.

He said,

‘I saw Leopold Godowsky play. I am convinced he is the most spectacular pianist in the world: he piled his own embellishments upon Liszt. He’s a little man, with small hands. Albert Einstein was in the audience, just a few rows in front of me.’

Boris was impressed by Einstein, and Ulrich went on happily with other anecdotes about the scientist. In his gesticulations he sent flying a full glass of beer, and the man next to him had to mop his thighs. The group at the table was large by now, and the red-faced man was telling another story.

‘The whole Russian army comes through Sofia on its way to fight the Turks. And they see my father, a nine-year-old boy, and take him off with them to war. And they beat the Turks and they bring the boy back to Sofia and say, Boy, you’ve served us well. Tell us what you’d like to beand we will help. They expect him to say, A general, or something like that. But he says, A cook. And the men all laugh, but the boy sticks to his guns so the Russian soldiers, good as their word, take him to Petersburg to work in the tsar’s kitchen.’

More beer came, and the red light began to curdle: Georgi’s face looked almost green in the corner. Ulrich watched the woman behind the bar, who used it to rest her breasts on. She made evident her displeasure when a customer ordered a drink and obliged her to haul them away again.

‘My father works his way up over the years and becomes a great cook, and when our independence comes around, Tsar Nicholas wonders what he can give to the Bulgarian king in congratulation, remembers that my father is from Sofia, and sends him. So my father becomes the Bulgarian royal chef.’

A young woman sat down next to Ulrich and introduced herself as Else; they talked about why they both had German names. She was pretty, but he did not like the prominence of her gums. Her stockings were full of holes.

‘So – listen! – so the years go by. My brother and I grow up. My father makes good money and he builds himself a house in the Centrum, the first two-storey house on the street. The new king comes in, and hears rumours of his chef’s wayward sons. He says he would like to come and see the house. So my father brings the king to Ovche Pole Street and shows him, and the king asks him how much it cost. My father works in a good margin and says that all in all it cost around twenty-five gold napoleons, and the king takes the money from his purse and gives it to him. And it’s obvious what the money says: You and I both know that noone can kill me more easily than you. So don’t forget it was I who boughtyou your house.’

Amid the hubbub, Else smoked unhappy cigarettes and told Ulrich that the girl who used to work here was coming back and she, Else, would be out of a job. The other girl had a more attractive body than she, and this thought made Else melancholy. She asked Ulrich whether he would go upstairs with her and he declined, so she slipped away to another table.

‘My brother keeps company with revolutionaries and he keeps falling into scrapes. The king covers it up each time, but he tells my father, You have to control those boys because I can’t protect them for ever. One night two foreigners come into a restaurant and start to harass the girl my brother is courting, who’s having dinner with her mother. Word gets to him and he comes down and shoots both the foreigners dead. Everyone sees it, and most people support him, though it was an extreme response. But the king says, This time you have to get that boyout of the country. Otherwise I’ll have him killed. My father sells some land, gives him the money, tells him to go to Paris, live a good life and never come back.’

Boris was talking to the people on his other side. There was a chorus of shouts at the other end of the bar, where an old singer was sitting. A crowd was pleading with her to perform. The red-faced man took a sip of beer and resumed his story.

‘So last week – he’s only been gone ten months, hasn’t written a single letter since he left – last week he appears at the door, says he’s spent everything and he’s got nowhere else to go. I asked him a thousand times what he’s done with the money but he couldn’t account for it. Paris is full of Bulgarians, apparently, and he fell straight into a high life. His lover was a Romanian princess who loved gambling, and it all seems to have left him with a perpetual smile on his face. That’s what sends my father close to apoplexy.’

There was laughter all round, and people raised glasses to the obstinate rake.

‘So I tell this idiot he has to leave. Does he realise what he’s doing, coming back here with things as they are? He takes no notice, he’s out every night, and eventually he doesn’t come home. They found him face down in the river yesterday morning. The king was as good as his word.’

They fell silent. Someone murmured,

‘Bastard.’

On the other side of the bar, the folk singer had agreed to sing, and there was enthusiastic applause as she made her way to the piano. She had lost nearly all her teeth. Her companion tuned his violin. Ulrich had a glass wedged between his knees, and Boris clinked it to rouse him from his reverie. He said,

‘Did you meet any girls?’

His eyes were velvet with drink, and a tinnitus started up in Ulrich’s ears as he told the story of Clara Blum. Boris shook his head as he listened. He said,

‘Why have you come back, Ulrich? You love this woman and you’ve left her there. You’ve sacrificed this chemistry degree, which was all you ever dreamed of. What are you thinking?’

‘What could I do?’ asked Ulrich fiercely. ‘There’s no more money to keep me there: that’s the clear reality. You should have seen what my mother wrote to me. Surely you can imagine what it’s like when you hear your mother in despair? I have no choice but to stay here and help her.’

‘Reality is never clear,’ said Boris. ‘It’s never final. You can always change it or see it a different way. If you’d asked me for money I would have given it to you. I want you to become a great chemist, not to sit around here in Sofia. This place is a disaster. You should have asked me, and my father would have sent you money. He’s still got more money than he knows what to do with.’

Ulrich stopped short, for he had never considered such a thing. Boris said,

‘You never once wrote to me from Berlin, as if you broke everything off as soon as you left. And now you’ve given up your degree and this wonderful woman. It’s as if you’re never truly attached to anything. Except your mother, perhaps.’

Ulrich felt foolish. He made a silent resolution to solve future dilemmas by imagining what Boris would say. He said weakly,

‘Well, there’s nothing I can do now.’

Boris drew curly lines with his finger in the beer on the table, extending the reflections of the lamps. The folk singer began to sing, and the bar became hushed. She had a deep, raspy voice, but sang with great sensitivity:

There sat three girls, three friends,

Embroidering aprons and crying tiny tears,

And they asked each other who loved whom.

Boris said,

‘What do you think of Georgi?’

‘He has a vicious face.’

Boris laughed.

‘I knew you wouldn’t like him,’ he said. ‘The strange thing about Georgi is that he holds a devilish attraction for women. You and I would think, with those teeth and that face, he’d have to make a big effort. But Georgi treats women with contempt, and they still fall over themselves to get him. I can never understand it.’

The first said: ‘I love a shepherd.’

The second one said: ‘I love a villager.’

Boris said under the music:

‘Do you remember the conversation we had before you left? When I came to your house?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve thought of it very often. I was wrong. You were right.’

Ulrich was taken aback. Boris added,

‘I sometimes wonder if I should not just have carried on playing music.’

To Ulrich’s astonishment, Boris’s eyes began to overflow with tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. He wiped his face.

The third one said, ‘I love a huge dragon.

He comes to me in the evening,

In the middle of the night.