Nine Perfect Strangers

by Liane Moriarty

  After lunch, while still reflecting on the wonder of saffron, Frances opened the door marked private then climbed up two flights of stairs to the princess tower at the top of the house and knocked on the door of Masha’s office.

  ‘Come in,’ said a voice, a little peremptorily.

  Frances entered the room, reminded of visits to the principal’s office when she was at boarding school.

  Masha was writing something down and she gestured towards the seat in front of her to indicate that Frances should sit while she finished what she was doing.

  Her demeanour would normally have made Frances bristle, and she wasn’t yet quite so Zen that she didn’t note the fact that she had the right to bristle. She was the paying guest turning up at the appointed time, thank you very much, not the hired help. But she didn’t sigh or clear her throat or wriggle because she was very nearly transformed, definitely thinner, and yesterday she did two push-ups in a row on her toes. She’d probably look very similar to Masha quite soon.

  A wave of laughter rose in her chest and she distracted herself by studying the room.

  She’d love an office like this. If she had an office like this she would probably write a masterpiece without chocolate. There were huge glass windows on all four sides, giving Masha a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the soft, rippling green countryside. It looked like a Renaissance painting from up here.

  In the same way that the silence didn’t apply to Masha, it seemed that neither did the ‘no electronic devices’ rule. Masha did not seem averse to the very latest in technology. She had not one but two very smart-looking oversized computer monitors on her desk, as well as a laptop.

  Was she surfing the internet up here while all her guests digitally detoxed? Frances felt her right hand twitch. She imagined grabbing a mouse, spinning a monitor around to face her, and clicking on a news site. What had happened in the last four days? There could have been a zombie apocalypse or a significant celebrity couple break-up and Frances would have no idea.

  She dragged her eyes away from the seductive computer screens and looked instead at the few items on Masha’s desk. No photo frames revealing anything personal. There were a few lovely antiques that Frances coveted. Her hand crept out to touch a letter opener. The gold handle had an intricate design with pictures of . . . elephants?

  ‘Careful,’ said Masha. ‘That letter opener is as sharp as a dagger. You could murder someone with that, Frances.’

  Frances’s hand flew back as fast as a shoplifter’s.

  Masha picked up the letter opener and removed it from its sheath. ‘It is at least two hundred years old,’ she said. She pressed her thumb to the sharp point. ‘It has been in my family for a long time.’

  Frances made an interested murmur. She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to break the silence, and suddenly she was irritated by that.

  ‘I assume the noble silence doesn’t apply right now?’ she said, and her unused voice sounded strange and unfamiliar to her ears. She’d been so good! She hadn’t even talked to herself when she was alone in her room, and normally she was very chatty when alone, cheerfully narrating her own actions and engaging in friendly dialogue with inanimate objects. ‘Where are you hiding, o peeler of carrots?’

  ‘Ah, you are a person who likes to follow the rules, are you?’ Masha rested her chin in both hands and studied her. Her eyes really were a remarkable shade of green.

  ‘Generally,’ said Frances.

  Masha didn’t break eye contact.

  ‘As I’m sure you know, I did have some banned items in my luggage,’ said Frances. She was happy with her cool tone, but her face was hot.

  ‘Yes,’ said Masha. ‘I am aware of that.’

  ‘And I’m still reading,’ said Frances defiantly.

  ‘Are you?’ said Masha.

  ‘Yes,’ said Frances.

  ‘Anything good?’ Masha replaced the letter opener on her desk.

  Frances thought about this. The book was meant to be another murder mystery but the author had introduced far too many characters too early, and so far everyone was still alive and kicking. The pace had slowed. Come on now. Hurry up and kill someone. ‘It’s quite good,’ she told Masha.

  ‘Tell me, Frances,’ said Masha. ‘Do you want to be a different person when you leave here?’

  ‘Well,’ said Frances. She picked up a coloured glass ball from Masha’s desk. It felt vaguely bad-mannered – you didn’t pick up other people’s belongings – and yet she couldn’t help it. She wanted to feel the cool weight of it in her hand. ‘I guess I do.’

  ‘I don’t think you do,’ said Masha. ‘I think you are here for a little rest, and you are quite happy with the way you are now. I think this is all a little bit of joke to you. You prefer not to take things too seriously in your life, yes?’ Her accent had deepened.

  Frances reminded herself that this woman had no authority over her.

  ‘Does it matter if I’m just here for a “little rest”?’ Frances put the glass ball back down and pushed it away from her, causing a moment’s panic when it began to roll. She stopped it with her fingertips and placed her hands in her lap. This was ridiculous. Why did she feel ashamed? Like a teenager? This was a health resort.

  Masha didn’t answer her question. ‘I wonder, do you feel that you’ve ever been truly tested in your life?’

  Frances shifted in her seat. ‘I’ve suffered losses,’ she said defensively.

  Masha flicked her hand. ‘Of course you have,’ she said. ‘You are fifty-two years old. That is not my question.’

  ‘I’ve been lucky,’ said Frances. ‘I know I have been very lucky.’

  ‘And you live in the “lucky country”.’ Masha lifted her arms to encompass the countryside that surrounded them.

  ‘Well, that phrase about us being the lucky country, it’s kind of misused.’ Frances heard a pedantic tone creep into her voice and she wondered why she was parroting her first husband, Sol, who always felt the need to point this out smugly when someone referred to Australia as being the lucky country. ‘The author who wrote that phrase meant to imply that we hadn’t earned our prosperity.’

  ‘So Australia is not so lucky?’

  ‘Well, no, we are, but . . .’ Frances stopped. Was that exactly the point that Masha was trying to make? That Frances hadn’t earned her prosperity?

  ‘You never had children,’ said Masha, referring to an open file on the desk in front of her. Frances found herself craning to look, as if her file would reveal a secret. Masha only knew she didn’t have children because Frances had indicated that when she filled in the booking form. ‘Was that decision made by choice? Or was it forced upon you by circumstance?’

  ‘Choice,’ said Frances. This is none of your business, lady.

  She thought of Ari and the PlayStation games he was going to show her when she got to America. Where was Ari now? Or the boy who pretended to be Ari? Was he on the phone to some other woman?

  ‘I see,’ said Masha.

  Did Masha think she was selfish for not wanting children? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d heard that accusation. It had never especially bothered her.

  ‘Do you have children?’ Frances asked Masha. She was allowed to ask questions. This woman was not her therapist. She probably had no qualifications whatsoever! She leaned forward, curious to know. ‘Are you in a relationship?’

  ‘I am not in a relationship and I do not have children,’ said Masha. She had become very still. She looked very steadily at Frances – so steadily that Frances couldn’t help but wonder if she was lying, although it was impossible to imagine Masha in a relationship. She could never be half of any relationship.

  ‘You mentioned losses,’ said Masha. ‘Tell me about those losses.’

  ‘My father died when I was very young,’ said Frances.

  ‘Mine also,’ said Masha.<
br />
  Frances was taken aback by this unasked-for personal revelation.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Frances. She thought of her last memory of her dad. It had been summer. A Saturday. She was going out to her part-time job as a checkout girl at Target. He was sitting in their living room playing Hot August Night, smoking a cigarette, eyes closed and humming along with deep feeling to Neil Diamond, whom he considered to be a genius. Frances kissed him on the forehead. ‘See you, darling,’ he said, without opening his eyes. For her, the smell of cigarettes was the smell of love. She dated far too many smokers for that reason.

  ‘A lady driving a car didn’t stop at a pedestrian crossing,’ said Frances. ‘The sun was in her eyes. My father was going for a walk.’

  ‘My father was shot in a market by a hitman for the Russian mafia,’ said Masha. ‘Also an accident. They thought he was someone else.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Frances tried not to look too avid for more exotic detail.

  Masha shrugged. ‘My mother said my father had too common a face. Too plain. Like anybody’s, like everybody’s. She was very angry with him for his plain face.’

  Frances didn’t know whether to smile. Masha didn’t smile, so Frances didn’t either.

  Frances offered up, ‘My mother was angry with my father for going for a walk. For years she said, “It was so hot that day! Why didn’t he just stay inside like a normal person? Why did he have to walk everywhere?”’

  Masha nodded. Just once.

  ‘My father should not have been at the market,’ she said. ‘He was a very clever man, he had a very senior position for a firm that made vacuum cleaners, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, when inflation went . . .’ She made a whistling motion and pointed up. ‘Our entire savings, gone! My father’s company could not pay him cash. They paid him in vacuum cleaners. So . . . he went to the market to sell the vacuum cleaners. He should not have had to do that. It was beneath him.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ said Frances.

  For a moment it felt as if the giant chasm that separated their different cultures and childhoods and body types could be bridged by the commonality of the loss of their fathers, through terrible chance, and their bitter, grieving mothers. But then Masha sniffed, as if suddenly disgusted by some unmentionable behaviour. She closed the file in front of her. ‘Well. It has been nice to chat with you, Frances, to get to know you a little bit.’

  She made it sound as if she now knew everything there was to know about Frances.

  ‘How did you end up in Australia?’ asked Frances, suddenly desperate for the conversation not to end. She didn’t want to go back to the silence now she’d experienced the pleasure of human interaction, and it was fine if Masha didn’t want to know more about Frances, but Frances most certainly wanted to know more about her.

  ‘My ex-husband and I applied to different embassies,’ said Masha coldly. ‘The US. Canada. Australia. I wanted the US, my husband wanted Canada, but Australia wanted us.’

  Frances tried not to take this personally, although she had a feeling that Masha wanted her to take it personally.

  Also, ex-husband! They had divorce in common too! But Frances could tell she wouldn’t get anywhere trying to exchange divorce stories. There was something about Masha that reminded Frances of a friend from university who had been both deeply egocentric and deeply insecure. The only way to make her open up was with flattery: extremely careful flattery. It was like dismantling a bomb. You could accidentally offend them at any time.

  ‘I think it’s a very brave thing to do,’ said Frances. ‘To start a new life in a new country.’

  ‘Well, we did not have to travel the open seas in a rickety boat, if that’s what you are thinking. The Australian government paid our airfares. Picked us up at the airport. Paid for our accommodation. You needed us. We were both very intelligent people. I had a degree in mathematics. My husband was a talented, world-class scientist.’ Her eyes looked back into a past Frances longed to see. ‘Extremely talented.’

  The way she said ‘extremely talented’ didn’t make her sound like a divorced wife. She sounded like a widow.

  ‘We’re lucky you came then,’ said Frances humbly, on behalf of the Australian people.

  ‘Yes. You are. Very lucky,’ said Masha. She leaned forward, her face suddenly alight. ‘I’ll tell you why we came! Because of a VCR. It all starts with the VCR. And now nobody even has a VCR! Technology . . .’

  ‘The VCR?’ said Frances.

  ‘Our neighbours in the flat next to ours got one. Nobody could afford such a thing. They inherited money from a relative who died in Siberia. These neighbours were good friends of ours and they asked us over to see movies.’ Her gaze became unfocused, once again remembering.

  Frances didn’t move; she didn’t want Masha to stop this sudden sharing of confidences. It was like when your uptight boss goes to the pub with you and loosens up over a drink and suddenly starts chatting to you like you’re an equal.

  ‘It was a window into another world. Into a capitalist world. It all seemed so different, so amazing, so . . . abundant.’ Masha smiled dreamily. ‘Dirty Dancing, Desperately Seeking Susan, The Breakfast Club – not that many, because the movies were insanely expensive, so people had to swap them. The voices were all done by the same person holding his nose to disguise his voice because it was illegal.’ She held her nose and spoke in a nasal voice to demonstrate.

  ‘If it wasn’t for that VCR, for those movies, we might not have worked so hard to leave. It was not easy to leave.’

  ‘Did the reality live up to your expectations?’ asked Frances, thinking of the glossy, highly coloured world of eighties films and how bland suburban Sydney would feel when she and friends emerged blinking from the cinemas. ‘Was it as wonderful as in the movies?’

  ‘It was as wonderful,’ said Masha. She picked up the glass ball that Frances had put down and held it in the flat palm of her hand as if daring it to roll. It stayed completely still. ‘And it was not.’

  She put the ball back down decisively. Suddenly she seemed to remember her superior status. Like when your boss remembers you have to work together the next day.

  ‘So, Frances, tomorrow we will officially break the silence and you will get to know the other guests.’

  ‘I’m looking forward –’

  ‘Enjoy your evening meal because there will be no meals served at all tomorrow. Your first light fast will begin.’

  She held out her hand in such a way that Frances found herself automatically rising to her feet.

  ‘Have you done much fasting before?’ Masha looked up at her. She said ‘fasting’ as if it were an exotic, delightful practice, like belly dancing.

  ‘Not really,’ admitted Frances. ‘But it’s just a light fast, right?

  Masha smiled radiantly. ‘You may find tomorrow a little testing, Frances.’

  chapter twenty-four

  Carmel

  ‘You have already lost some weight, I see.’ Masha opened Carmel’s file to begin her counselling session.

  ‘Have I?’ said Carmel. She felt like she’d won a prize. ‘How much?’

  Masha ignored the question. She ran her finger down a sheet of paper in the file.

  ‘I thought I might have lost some – but I wasn’t sure.’ Carmel heard her unused voice tremble with pleasure. She hadn’t dared to hope. It seemed that Yao deliberately stood in such a way that she couldn’t see that dreaded number on the scales each day.

  She put a hand to her stomach. She had suspected it was getting flatter, her clothes looser! She’d been secretly touching her stomach, like when she was pregnant for the first time. This retreat was just like that euphoric time: the feeling that her body was changing in new and miraculous ways.

  ‘I guess I’ll probably lose even more when we start the fast tomorrow?’ Carmel wanted to demonstrate her enthusiasm a
nd commitment to the retreat. She would do whatever it took.

  Masha said nothing. She closed Carmel’s file and balanced her chin on her folded hands.

  Carmel said, ‘I hope it’s not just fluid loss. They say that in the first few days of a diet you mostly just lose fluid.’

  Masha still said nothing.

  ‘I know the meals here are all calorie-controlled. I guess the challenge will be maintaining my weight loss when I go home. I’d be really grateful for any nutrition advice you can give me going forward. Maybe a recipe plan?’

  ‘You do not need a recipe plan,’ said Masha. ‘You are intelligent woman. You know what to do to lose weight, if that’s what you want. You are not especially fat. You are not especially thin. You want to be thinner. That is your choice. I find this not so interesting.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Carmel. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Tell me something about yourself that is not related to your weight,’ said Masha.

  ‘Well, I have four daughters,’ said Carmel. She smiled at the thought of them. ‘They’re aged ten, eight, seven and five.’

  ‘I know this already. You are a mother,’ said Masha. ‘Tell me something else.’

  ‘My husband left me. He has a new girlfriend now. So that’s been –’

  Masha waved that away irritably, as if it were of no relevance. ‘Something else.’

  ‘There is nothing else right now,’ said Carmel. ‘There’s no time for anything else. I’m just a normal busy mum. An overweight, stressed-out, suburban mum.’ As she spoke she scanned Masha’s desk for family photos. She must not have children. If she did, she would know how motherhood swallowed you up whole. ‘I work part-time,’ she tried to explain. ‘I have an elderly mother who is not well. I am always tired. Always, always tired.’