Free Solo by Rana Dasgupta

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 andsee 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 no one can kill me more easily than you. So don’t forget it was I who bought you 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 boy out 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 seemsto 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?