Nine Perfect Strangers

Those drugs weren’t cheap. They had cut into her profit margins. She had been prepared to take less profit for their benefit. Dear Yao had worked so hard to ensure the correct dosages for each guest. There had been many late nights getting this right!

The new protocol was meant to be Masha’s career pivot. She was ready to be part of a bigger world again. She missed the public recognition she had enjoyed in her corporate life: the profiles in business magazines, the invitations to deliver keynote addresses. She wanted to publish articles and deliver speeches at conferences and events. She had already put the word out about a potential book deal. The response had been positive. Personal transformation is a topic of perennial interest, wrote one publisher. Keep us posted.

Masha had enjoyed the thought of her previous colleagues seeing her reincarnation. They would probably not recognise her at first, and then they would respond with awe and envy. She had escaped the rat race and look what she had achieved. There would be magazine profiles and television interviews. She planned to employ a publicist. She certainly intended to mention Yao in the acknowledgements of her book and would even consider promoting him to a more senior position at Tranquillum House while she was busy on the speaking circuit.

Masha’s glittering, glorious future lay ahead and these ungrateful dolts stood in the way of it. Masha had anticipated year-long waiting lists after the news of their success got out. Prices would have to rise to reflect the demand. These people had been offered this incre

dible program for a bargain-basement price and they did nothing but moan.

They thought they were hungry! Had they ever known true hunger? Had they ever lined up for more than five minutes to buy basic food supplies?

Masha considered the blank computer monitor and thought about turning it back on, but she didn’t want to see them right now. She was too angry with them. That Heather Marconi was so disrespectful. Masha did not like her.

If any one of them had a brain, they could be out of that room right now and on their way to the police to make their complaints about how poorly they had been treated, when the truth was they had been lovingly nurtured.

Masha took a key from her top drawer and unlocked the cupboard beneath her desk.

For a moment she sat and studied the contents. Her mouth filled with saliva. She lunged forward and grabbed a bag of Doritos and a jar of salsa. The bag was fat and smooth and crackled in her hand.

She remembered the woman who would come home late at night from the office after working a sixteen-hour day and sit in a dark room in front of the television to mindlessly eat Doritos and salsa. That had been Masha’s evening meal. She had not cared about her body. Her body meant nothing. She just bought bigger and bigger-sized clothes when she noticed. All she cared about was work. She smoked and did no exercise. As that doctor had said, she was a heart attack or a stroke waiting to happen.

She opened the pack and breathed in the scents of fake cheese and salt. Her mouth watered. Her stomach churned with self-disgust. It had been over a year since she had last indulged in this depraved, disgusting act. This was all because of her ungrateful guests.

Last time she ate Doritos it had also been a guest’s fault. He had put a one-star review on TripAdvisor about Tranquillum House and written a litany of lies. He said they had bed bugs. He posted a photo of the bites. There were no bed bugs. He made it all up because Masha told him on the last day that he was a candidate for a heart attack or a stroke unless he continued to change his lifestyle when he got back home. She knew this because she recognised him as the person she had once been. Yet she offended him by using the word ‘fat’. He was fat. Why the surprise? Wasn’t that why he came here?

Masha put the first Dorito on her tongue and her whole body trembled with the chemical reaction it invoked. She knew exactly how many calories she was about to consume and how much exercise she was going to need to do to burn them off. (Alternatively, she could vomit.)

She crunched the Dorito between her teeth and opened the jar of salsa with one hard twist of her wrist. Once she had weak, useless arms that would have struggled to open this jar. That sad fat woman in front of the television used to swear and tap away at the lid with a spoon, trying to loosen it.

In the life before that, there had been a man for opening jars. She used to call for her husband sharply like he was a servant, and he would open the jar, smile and touch her. He was always touching her. Every single day for years and years she was touched.

But that was someone else. It had been decades now since she was touched with love.

She thought briefly of Yao’s hand tonight touching hers, and she took another Dorito from the pack and scooped out the red, glistening salsa.

Yao made a tiny sound like a child. His cheeks were flushed. He looked like a feverish baby.

Masha put the back of her hand to his forehead and held it there for a moment. He did feel hot.

She shoved the Dorito in her mouth and began to eat faster and faster, yellow crumbs falling all over her desk and her dress, as she allowed herself to remember the last day of that life of so long ago.

It was a Sunday. Her ex-husband was out being a ‘laid-back’ Australian. Australians liked to call themselves ‘laid-back’, as if that were a good thing. He had accepted an invitation from his work colleagues to play a game where they shot each other with balls of paint. It would be ‘fun’ and a ‘lot of laughs’.

Yes, it sounded very laid-back: running around shooting each other. The other wives were going but Masha stayed home with the baby. She had nothing in common with those women, and they dressed so badly it made her depressed and homesick. Masha was a working mother. She had work to do. She was ten times smarter than all the men at the company where she worked, but she had to work ten times harder for the recognition she deserved.

She was too tall. Sometimes her colleagues pretended not to understand her and sometimes she could tell they really didn’t understand, even though she spoke better English than them. She didn’t appreciate their humour – she never laughed on time – and they didn’t appreciate hers. When she made a joke, often a very funny, sophisticated, intelligent joke, they stared at her with confused, blank faces.

At home she had many friends, but here she experienced a strange kind of shyness. It made her angry and resentful to feel that way, because back home she would never have been called shy. She held herself stiffly because she could not stand to be laughed at, and here there was always the possibility that she might misunderstand or be misunderstood. Her husband didn’t care when that happened. He found it funny. He had fearlessly dived straight into the social scene before he knew the rules, and people loved him. Masha was proud of him for that, although also a little envious.

Once, Masha and her husband were invited to her boss’s home for what Masha assumed was a dinner party. She dressed very nicely, very sexy, high heels and a dress. Every single woman but Masha wore jeans.

The invitation said ‘Bring your own meat’. Masha confidently told her husband: ‘No, no, that is a joke! An Australian joke. Not very funny but most definitely a joke.’ They would not make the embarrassing mistake of taking it seriously.

But it was not a joke. The women in jeans carried plastic shopping bags looped over their hands. The bags contained packages of uncooked meat. Just enough for two. Two steaks. Four sausages. Masha could not believe her eyes.

Her husband was quick. He slapped his hand to his forehead. ‘Oh no, we left our meat at home!’ he told the host.

‘No worries,’ said the host. ‘We’ve got plenty to spare.’